%
% Contre le ciel
%
% Reuben Thomas   14/1/02 (seed), 13/2/02 (poem); revised 17/12/03
% Added quotation from "Is Sex Necessary?" 12th September 2007
%
% Typeset 13/2/02
%


\documentclass[english,french]{article}
\usepackage{a4,babel,palatino}
\usepackage[nonotes]{poem}

\pagestyle{empty}


\begin{document}
\selectlanguage{french}
\begin{poem}
  \title{Contre le ciel}
  \stanza*
  Les branches tirent leurs chansons \\
  \`A travers mon nu c\oe{}ur ;\footnote{Sent as ``de mon c\oe{}ur''} \\
  Les regards m\'elangent en sourires \\
  Mon \^ame avec douleur. \\

  \stanza*
  Entre les arbres et les femmes \\
  Quelle est la diff\'erence ?\footnote{Sent as ``Qu'est-ce que''} \\
  Ils ont la m\^eme m\'elancolie, \\
  La m\^eme innocence \\

  \stanza*
  M\^eme le d\'esir est pareil, \\
  Le d\'esespoir aussi : \\
  L'une pour l'immortalit\'e \\
  Et l'autre pour la nuit. \\

  \stanza*
  De cette vue ne cesseront \\
  Jamais mes yeux, fix\'es \\
  Par g\'eom\'etrie implacable, \\
  Logique de la beaut\'e. \footnote{Sent as ``La logique de beaut\'e''}\\
  \selectlanguage{english}
  \author{Reuben Thomas}
  \poemdate{\selectlanguage{english}13th February 2002; revised 17th December 2003}
\end{poem}
\begin{notes}
  The phrase which became the first two lines (except with ``leur
  chanson'') came to me on 14th January 2002, triggered by the beauty
  of Marie Fagerstrom, the girlfriend of a housemate of Alistair
  Turnbull's. I didn't tell her this, but as she was francophone,
  asked her opinion, and to help me correct the French. I wrote the
  rest on the date above. I gave it to Kate for Valentine's Day. The
  corrections in the first and last verses are Marie's, and that in
  the second was suggested by Catherine Heyrendt.

  \emph{Ou trouves-tu l'innocence parmi les arbres? J'y vois la
    sagesse, la constance, la calme...le contraire de ce qui
    caracterise pour moi les femmes (et les hommes)... [Eugenia|E]}

  \emph{Peut-\^etre je trouve seulement une rhyme! Ou l'innocence qui
    vient du manque de la conscience. [Reuben Thomas|R]}

  \emph{I think you have to say "mon coeur nu" (l. 2 - pity for the
    "rhyme") and "Quelle est la diff\'erence" rather than "Qu'est-ce
    que la diff\'erence" (which sounds at best clumsy, if grammatically
    correct at all in this case). Unlike [Eugenia|E], however, I find
    the association trees/women both apt and refreshingly original.
    Maybe it's not so much about what women really are, but what they
    may represent for men? Perhaps the reverse association applies to
    women's viewpoint? [Catherine|C]}

  \emph{Poets mess around with noun-verb order, I think it's allowed.
    The second change I like. [Reuben Thomas|R]}

  On 11th September 2007 I came across the following passage in the
  Preface of \emph{Is Sex Necessary?} by James Thurber and E. B.
  White:

  \begin{quote}
    Some authorities claim that no man can see all there is to see in
    a woman, because she is too complicated and mysterious for him.
    This notion---that Woman is more incomprehensible than Man---has
    persisted for centuries. It is of a piece with the legend that
    Woman is deserving of a certain form of idolatrous worship, a
    legend that grew up in the early ages of the world. When Man first
    came into being, he did not think that the female was
    extraordinary. He did not think that anything was extraordinary.
    The world was unattractive physically, and a little dull. There
    was no vegatation, and without vegetation there can be no fancy.
    Then trees came into existence. It was trees that first made Man
    begin to brood. In pondering their leafy intricacies he got his
    first crude concept of beauty. He used to tear great branches out
    of trees and take them home to his cave woman. ``Here,'' he would
    say to her, ``lie on these.'' The man then reclined in a corner of
    the cave and watched the woman's hair mingle with the leaves, and
    her eyes shine through them, until he fell asleep. His dreams were
    troubled. Woman came into his dreams as a tree, then a tree came
    into his dreams as a woman. He also got her eyes, shining through
    the leaves, all mixed up with the moon. Out of this curious and
    lamentable confusion grew the tendency in Man's mind to identify
    Woman with the phenomena of the burgeoning earth and the mysteries
    of the illimitable heavens. As time went on Man rather enjoyed
    cultivating this idea. It was something to think about. It wasn't
    much, but it was something. Thus was the subconscious born, with
    all its strange mixture of fact and symbol.
  \end{quote}

  On 11th November 2013, I read on p.~411 of Volume III of Proust
  (about 10 pp. from the end of “The Captive”): “the land of women
  just as much as it was the land of trees”.
\end{notes}
\end{document}

% Attempts at translation

% Against the sky
%
% Bare branches drag their songs
% Through my bared heart
%
% 19th April 2004

% Against the sky
%
% The branches tug their songs
% Across my heart;
% Looks mix my soul in smiles
% With sorrow
%
% Between trees and women
% What is the difference?
% They have the same melancholy,
% The same innocence
%
% Even the desire is the same,
% And the despair:
% One for immortality
% One for the night
%
% From this view my eyes
% Will never turn, fixed
% By implacable geometry,
% The logic of beauty
%
% 5th August 2005

% Against the sky
%
% The branches pull their songs
% Across my naked heart;
% The glances mix in smiles
% My soul with sorrow
%
% Between trees and women
% What is the difference?
% They have the same melancholy,
% The same innocence
%
% Even the desire is the same,
% The despair too:
% One for immortality
% And the other for the night
%
% From this view will cease
% Never my eyes, fixed
% By implacable geometry,
% Beauty's logic
%
%
% 10th June 2006
