Here is the
country of water and white lizards
of ventilators and
motorcycles.
People ride two by
two,
clinging one to the
other,
on small
motorscooters.
Now and
then,
I saw a whole
family,
father, mother and two
children,
riding on the same
machine,
looking as quiet and
pleasant,
as if they were in a
first class compartment.
What's the use of a
car
when the air is so
mild?
Young girls wander
along,
their chins over the
drivers' shoulders,
watching the
road,
with the same eyes as
his,
or else sitting
side-saddled,
hardly resting on the
skaï of the saddle,
with a graceful
balance,
as allowed by their
everlasting lightness
of their being forever
16.
Some drive, wearing
gloves.
Hence,
living
seems to be a matter of
meticulousness.
In every possible
pitch,
horns echo,
here I come,
here I am,
give me way.
But they seem to have
much pleasure to insist
that they only
wish
to add their shrill
note
to the frenzied
cacophony of tears.
Both hooter and
helm,
the horn
curves
paths and
trails.
They don't
stop,
they slow down a
little,
meander,
tack,
skim,
shirk.
Lissomness eschews
clinks.
Nothing
head-on,
everything
curves
skids,
slants.
One
anticipates,
one is never caught off
one's guard,
one joins
in,
one leaps onto the
rythm,
37-38 kms an
hour,
one models one's
speed
on to the temperature
of the air.
Now and then a
glance,
a smile,
some kind of
love-making,
very
quickly,
with your eyes
only.
The street has its
smells,
its humours, its
smugginesses,
its wrinkles and its
wounds.
River or
rice-field,
now it
spreads,
entrenches
itself,
sets up its
camp,
with its stalls, its
canvasses
of merchants
crouching.
98°-100°F.
the temperature of the
air resembles
that of the
heart.
Why so much
hurly-burly,
why so much
urge?
one pulls one's
life,
one loads it or unloads
it,
one drops
it,
one heaves
it,
one balances
it,
one shifts
it,
one is aware of the
burdens and the efforts.
Yet living doesn't seem
to weigh upon them
when they remain
sitting
quietly,
on their
doorsteps.
People,
here,
seem to be waiting for
nothing
but for the
present.
Here it is,
there it
comes,
never repeats
itself,
takes its
roots,
stretches
itself,
looks like
eternity.
When the sun goes
down,
in the little
shop,
the owner puts away his
motorbike,
lying on a camp bed or
crouching right on the tiled floor,
they watch
TV,
stripped to the waste,
idly,
or else,
two or three of
them
gather on the
threshhold or on the on the pavement
nibbling at some
food,
next to a
candle,
in the thickness and
the mugginess of night
which its warm
dampness
seems to turn even
blacker.
Sometimes
too,
people go for a
walk,
along the side of the
lake
with the
lovers,
the clusters of
children,
and old men wearing
pijamas
among the tireless
crickets of the flamboyants.
Outside the
town,
the town,
the road and the motor
way
remember dirt
tracks
with holes, muds,
puddles,
interruptions,
ruts,
loose
stones,
hay-stasks, now
higgedly-piggledy,
drying, flat on
verges.
Sometimes uneven
roadways
are entirely covered
with straw,
now piled
up,
turned over,
now meant to
dry,
or in
sheaves,
hence spread in long
golden pavements
where hens come and
peck.
Thus the countryside
pushes away the town
or, rather, stands up
to it,
relentlessly following
its own pace,
carrying its
bundles,
pulling its
buffaloes,
or pushing its herds
and ducks,
amid the mopeds and
trucks.
Where the market
stands,
the street itself goes
back to the earth,
with its vegetables and
fruits,
one would think they
grew on the spot,
rather than come from
the villages.
It becomes a swamp with
its fishes,
or a field with its
peasants
wearing a lamp-shade
made of straw on their heads,
and who,
too,
seem just risen from
the earth with their cones,
their buckets and their
hoists.
Here too the
contemporary becomes a building site
but people work
there
with ageless faces and
tools.
Only very few
machines,
here the world is hand
made.
Water-lilies,
duckweeds, lotus flowers and rice bunches.
Here grass grows in the
water.
Truly,
in this
country,
people don't really
live on earth,
but on the
surface
of the liquid thin
layer
covering it
and permeating
it.
One doesn't even know
either
whether one one is
either in town
or in the
countryside,
since water, with its
grass, comes so close to the houses.
Water is called
homeland,
hence,
may be,
the taste for
xylophones,
for wet
arpeggios
and shrill
tunes
where the rain is heard
falling.
The thick and damp
monsoon rain
brings with new $1
hues,
the green, blue, pink,
yellow and purple
of large plastic
raincoats
both monochromatic and
transparent
in which one wraps
oneself to pedal.
Looking
askance,
faking the
hippo,
two buffaloes under
water up to the eyes
swim in the
ditch
on the surface of grey
waters.
Annam, Annamite,
TonkinÝ;
Indochina, Cochinchina,
Viet-Nam,
how many names does
this country have?
Lets repeat what
Tardieu wrote about Tonkin:
"indifferenciation and
everlasting abrupt change of subject",
this country is a
poem.
I never stop taking one
thing for another.
That white
lizard,
for example,
shrieking like a
bird,
perched on the
bedroom's white wall;
that blade of
grass
whom I don't know
whether it's
either meadow or
swamp,
and all these ghost
cyclists
with bandit-scarves
over their noses
letting only two black
eyes
be seen behind the mask
of white linen
covering their skin
from the sun.
Most of them wear a
fluid blouse
and wide
trousers,
very few
dresses;
they wouldn't be
practical enough
either to pedal or to
work,
few breasts, few
hips,
their outlines are
hardly different
from those of
boys.
When they are not made
of perfectly white linen,
their blouses are drawn
with thin stripes
or light green, or
brown squares:
here again, the earth
has its word to say,
here its
hues,
its lines
dress the
people
all the way to the
town.
What a weird
sight:
those creatures
tapering their head-tip into a point,
cone-shaped
heads,
whether they carry
hoists,
draw carts,
or pedal under the
rain.
That straw
lamp-shade
makes them
look
either childish or
floral.
Here are almost
cabalistic figures,
it's all grist to their
mill,
their bodies pointed
towards the sky,
or bent towards the
ground,
they are
the language of the
landscape,
its means of
signalling,
its roofs and its
moving church-towers.
Would anyone image such
a hat
on the head of a Texan
or Caucasian giant?
What makes it so
moving
is surely the way it
fits
thin bodies
and concludes
them
by almost hiding both
their necks and shoulders.
The woman
carrying her
hoist
is a
pendulum
whose conical
hat
becomes the
needle.
Clutches of tmbstones
among the fields
The dead feed the
quick.
They are
here,
so close.
They keep a watchful
eye on both grass and plentiful rice,
they share with you
both food and sleep.
They are offered
bundles of red notes,
card-board
houses,Ý;
paper sandals, a
camera,
a fake TV,
a
ventilator,
to take a breath of
cool air,
a motorbike or a
bike,
a watch to be able to
tell you the time in eternity.
For them,
people create a mock
universe,
a kind of red and
golden poem
enclosed in the big
box,
red and golden
too,
that gathers their
remains.
Words are like
poems,
their lives are made of
paper.
Lets imagine a new town
thus made up:
two or three green
lakes,
a grey
cathedral,
a few golden and
crimson pagodas,
and so many
streets:
Buttons St.?
Zip St., Wool ball
St.,
Exhaust pipe St.,
Hub-cap St.,
Offerings for dead
people St.,
Sandals St.,
Children's toys and
copy-books' St.,
Locks and keys'
StÝ.,
Bear cubs and bra-cups'
St.,
Zinc and tin
St.,
Electricity
St.,
Hammer and sickle
St.,
Quartz watches'
St.,
Suits' St.,
Motorbikes'
St.,
and the motorbikes of
the street,
the motorbikes of all
streets,
the street that begins
and ends nowhere,
the street that crosses
the world
and mixes its.
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