Common presence

You are hurried to write,

As if you were behind life itself.

As if thereby to make your wellsprings a procession.

Make haste.

Make haste to transmit

Your share of wonders of rebellion of beneficence.

Actually you are behind life itself,

Life inexpressible,

The only one in the final counting with which you accept to be united,

The one denied you each day by beings and things,

Of which you painfully obtain here and there some emaciated fragments

At the end of combats without mercy.

Outside that, all is but submissive agony, gross cessation.

If you meet death during your labor,

Receive it as the sweating nape finds good the arid kerchief,

Inclining yourself.

If you would laugh,

Offer your submission,

Never your weapons.

You have been created for moments not common.

Modify you, disappear without regret

As the smooth rigor wills.

Quarter after quarter the liquidation of the world goes on

Without interruption,

Without distraction.

Swarm the dust,

Naught will manifest your union.

René Char