Chartres Cathedral

In the still night is he going to speak

While the snow is falling and birds are all white?

Many’s the time I’ve wished to loose my heart

To the protection of one pure prayer

Ah, Lord! we cannot any longer meet

In the common prayer of the assembled faithful

Look I bring love in the eyes of my silent darling

Life is not distinct from the Last Judgment

She cried and sobbed that Easter day

During our visit to Chartres Cathedral

Her prayer as sad as the colors of the damp stained-glass

Christ crucified since ages, man at words’ end

And that same night before the cock crew

And the Chartreans left the fair

She sobbed in the greenery of fleeting night

Whereas my thoughts erred in the slender rain

For my mother, my wife, my children and Jesus

The heart torn between adultery and fidelity

My love is one, its Lord is One

Life and the Last Judgment are indissolubly linked

Such is the tale of our love

That was born in the Flower Market

Early in the morning around Notre-Dame de Paris

In the season of flowers and uneasy eyes

Such is the tale of that Easter day

When all of nature was in torments

Over temptation, adultery, love and the town

Because of her, of me, of my faithful wife

And that same night, in bed at the hotel

The sanctity of chapel singing came unto us

One were cursèd passion and the mercy of the Lord

The call of faithful love and the embrace of woman

That’s it then

This Easter story

When the earth was damp

And tears unstill

How the flowers just opened

In the earth of France

In that sweet earth

Since the Crucifixion.

Sitor Situmorang
tr. after Damais