eternity in the poetry of Claude De Burine said, Princess Haiku

But When I Have

But when I have closed my eyes
When you lie beneath the violets
Or brambles like me
When the clouds above us
Will take shape and crumble like us,
Who will speak for us?
Who will say: "You, your eyes
Are the color of dreaming
And young slates
Which tile the Springs of rains.

And you: Your skin is the thrush singing
Your hands my warmth
And summer's fever
Which bears your name."

Times goes where it will
Puts down its costume of jonquils
And water where it will,
We have nothing more
Than a butterfly wing drying
Against night's windows.
We are nothing more than a dust
Inside the avid lips of the wind.
Only language
Is lasting bronze.


Claude De Burine

translated by Martin Sorrell


The Yale Anthology of Twentieth-Century French Poetry, edited by Mary Ann Caws

"Following in the tradition of the Surrealists, de Burine's poetry and several essays employ impassioned metaphor and an effusion of imagery to illustrate the joys and sorrows of human existence."


If you are looking for more of her poetry: "Words Have Frozen Over" is available at Abe Books.

"de Burine's poetry is built almost entirely on imagery, where metaphor is poetic structure, and the freedom of the vision itself becomes a source of meaning. The legacy of the Surrealists is immediately apparent." Susan Wicks -