Where do you come from?
Poem
Un bébé est né
Un bébé est né, hier, à minuit,
À l’ouverture de la vie, il est encore dans la nuit ;
La maman le regarde, heureuse, fatiguée,
Il est encore en train de rêver.
Elle pleure de joie, de contentement,
Un vrai débordement, ce sont les larmes de l’enfantement ;
Le papa, debout, le regarde médusé,
Il comprend quelque chose d’inexpliqué.
Il embrasse la femme, son amante, tendrement,
Il se rappelle de leur rencontre, un jour, inopinément,
De leur première nuit d’amour, et maintenant.
L’enfant dort devant eux les poings fermés,
Inconscient, insouciant de la vie
Mais il sait d’ailleurs il a surgi.
Jean-Claude Holmey
A baby was born, yesterday, at midnight,
At the opening of life, he is still in the night;
The mum looks at him, happy, tired,
He is still in the midst of dreaming.
She cries with joy, with contentment,
A true overflow, these are the tears of birth;
The dad, standing, looks at him bewildered,
He grasps something inexplicable.
He kisses the woman, his lover, tenderly,
He recalls their first encounter, one day, unexpectedly,
Their first night of love, and now.
The child sleeps before them with fists closed,
Oblivious, unaware of life
But he knows very well from beyond he comes.
Jean-Claude Holmey (translated by François Holmey)
Read by Youness Bouzinab
Music
Goldberg Variations, BWV 988: Aria, Johann Sebastian Bach
Glenn Gould
Image
Metropolitan Museum of Life