Traveller

“The Worst of all Loves - Douglas Dunn

Where do they go, the faces, the people seen
In glances and longed for, who smile back
Wondering where the next kiss is coming from?

They are seen suddenly, from the top decks of buses
On railway platforms, at the tea machine
When the sleep of travelling makes us look for them.

A whiff of perfume, an eye, a hat, a shoe,
Bring back vague memories of names,
Thingummy, that bloke, what's-her-name.

What great things have I lost, that faces in a crowd
Should make me look at them for one I know?
What are faces that they must be looked for?

But there's one face, seen only once,
A fragment of a crowd. I know enough of her.
That face makes me dissatisfied with myself.

Those we secretly love, who never know of us,
What happens to them? Only this is known.
They will never meet us suddenly in pleasant rooms.”
― Douglas Dunn

“À la mémoire de Mamu, ma grand-mère,
Qui m’a laissé au cœur et aux poumons,
cette braise ronde de pur amour,
Que j’essaie de rallumer,
Avec mes pauvres moyens,
à chaque respiration.

In memory of Mamu, my grandmother,
Who left me in the heart and in the lungs,
this round ember of pure love,
That I try to rekindle,
With my poor means,
with each breath. ”
― Alain Damasio, La Horde du Contrevent

“Though we come and go, and pass into the shadows, where we leave behind us stories told — on paper, on the wings of butterflies, on the wind, on the hearts of others — there we are remembered, there we work magic and great change — passing on the fire like a torch — forever and forever. Till the sky falls, and all things are flawless and need no words at all.”
― Tanith Lee

“I have a lot of work to do today;
I need to slaughter memory,
Turn my living soul to stone
Then teach myself to live again.”
― Anna Akhmatova, The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova