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Ronald Johnson
THE SPIRIT WALKS, THE ROCKS WILL
TALK
Eccentric Translations from
Two Eccentrics
For Guy Davenport,
word-builder
FROM LE FACTEUR CHEVAL, BUILDER OF LE PALAIS IDEAL,
HAUTRIVES, FRANCE
“I built, in a dream, a chateau
of grottoes . . .
so pretty, so picturesque, that
ten years after it was still
engraved in my memory so that I
was never able to escape it.
Then after 15 years, when I had
begun to forget my dream a
little, I thought less of the world:
it was my foot that
recalled me.
My foot had caught an obstacle that
made me fall; I had wanted
to know what it was. It was
a stone of such bizarre form that
I put it in my pocket in order
to admire it at my convenience.”
1
Night and day
what to do
– while walking perpetually
in the same place –
except dream.
2
The weather –
the criticism
– and the years.
Sometimes
in flowers.
Sometimes
in snow and ice.
3
The stones
absorbed me –
troubled my sleep
– flamingoes,
geese,
and eagles.
4
A cascade
chiseled by Nature.
Grotesque and original
plants (or animals)
placed
in a thousand little strange
palaces . . .
Where the dream
becomes real
the word
‘impossible’
does not exist.
5
Le vent de l’énergie
M’a souffle votre génie.
Translation:
My work has been
inspired
by wind.
6
A number of serpents
project to the fascinated eye.
I was never able
to escape.
7
I have placed this
monument
under the care
of three
giants.
My wheelbarrow
is in
a special
niche.
8
(A l’interieur de Palais
Imaginaire)
“J’ai voulu dormir ici.”
In the interior
of the Imaginary Palace:
“I have wanted
to sleep here.”
9
My tomb
is called Le
Tombeau
de Silence –
of silence and
repose
without end.
Night and
Day. At the two
extremities
are found
a labyrinth.
10
One day
this rock
will talk.
FROM RAYMOND ISIDORE, BUILDER OF LE PETIT
PIQUE-ASSIETTE, CHARTRES (EURE-ET-LOIR), FRANCE
“I was walking in the country when
I saw by chance some bits
of glass and crockery which I collected
for their color and
sparkle. I accumulated them
in a corner of my garden, then
the idea came to me of making a
mosaic of my house.”
1
Slowly, a man
makes
(a mosaic
of earth and sky)
his house.
2
When it seizes me
always the same
colors that have begun
to fade.
3
I have heard
of the Facteur Cheval,
but I have never
seen him.
Two tombs, two
thrones –
one black
one blue.
It is
what
one sees.
4
To the interior,
to a world of
the very
small,
to the boudoir-jardin
d’hiver,
I have brought both
monsters
and cathedrals.
The spirit
walks.
5
Dans mon
milieu
dans
mon lieu –
and a tiny door
inlaid
in my head
that leads
to the winter
garden.
6
After me,
nothing dies.
I made it
alone.
THE SPIRIT WALKS, THE ROCKS WILL TALK is © 1969 by Ronald Johnson, and © 2003 by the
Ronald Johnson Estate. All reproduction rights for the text remain with the Ronald Johnson Estate.
See
Bradford Haas’
“A Note On Ronald Johnson’s THE SPIRIT WALKS, THE ROCKS WILL TALK.”
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