That The World Was There Poem by Jacques Roubaud

Falling asleep I saw the world was there,
the world and all that follows from it;
"now" smaller than a point
behind immense and serious colours.
buzzing years come back from afar,
angle of street and street,
traces washed off by rain,
yellow stuff gathered in my hand.

In falling asleep I saw all this:
the warm ellipse of the well,
the earth where leaves have no more weight,
the water, level, median, in balance.

I saw, falling asleep, I saw
what I had welcomed now for years
but what my memory did not know:
entire years with truth,
that is, if you insist, with death.

I did and did not want to see, falling asleep,
what I had seen too many times.

Translation: Rosmarie Waldrop