OF MANY POEMS Poem by Jacques Roubaud

Of many poems
There was one
I could no longer remember
Except that I'd composed it
Once
While going down this street
Down the even side of this street
Bathed in a limpid morning
A street of small stubborn shops
Between the sullied Seine and the hospital
A poem written with my feet
As all my poems are composed
In silence and in my head and walking
But I can remember nothing
Except the street the light the chance
Which had me put in the poem
The word ‘respect'
One I rarely make glisten
In the mental pages of poetry
But there's nothing left apart from it
And this word this motionless word
Stands at the end of the street
Like a tree forgotten in the middle of nowhere