Translation: Francis Jammes, It's going to snow

Edvard Munch, New Snow in the Avenue, 1906

This is Bora Mici's original French to English translation of the poem "Il va neiger" or "It's going to snow" by the French 19th- to 20th-century poet Francis Jammes. Even though it is currently the beginning of spring in the Washington, DC area, I was feeling somewhat nostalgic for winter's silence and was drawn to this poem in Georges Pompidou's anthology of French poetry. What I like about this poem is its background of snow falling and the constant and enduring everyday quality of the objects it describes. It evokes a sense of peace and comfort and quiet and eternity, and a reckoning with our innermost strivings to change the world around us by labelling things and thus seeking to possess them and make our imprint on them.  

Francis Jammes, Il va neiger... by Bora Mici

It’s going to snow…

It is going to snow in a few days. I recall
a year ago. I remember my sad thoughts
by the fire pit. If you had asked me though: what is it?
I would have said: let me alone. It’s nothing at all.

I have thought long, last year, in my room, I remember
whilst the heavy snow fell out the door,
My thoughts were naught. Now as before
I am smoking a wooden pipe with an end piece of amber.

My old chest of drawers still smells good of oak,
I was stupid because so many things

could not change and it’s just posing
to want to estrange the things we cannot stoke.

So why do we think and speak? It’s
our tears and kisses, they, don’t speak, [funny thing;
and yet we understand them, and the steps
of a friend are sweeter than sweet words linked.

We have baptized the stars without much thought
and they did not need a name, and the numbers,
which prove that the pretty comets in dark slumbers
will pass, all the same, will not make them change their lot.

And even at this moment, where are my sad fits
from last year? I barely remember them.
I would persevere: Leave me alone, it’s nothing ahem,
if you came into my room to ask me: what is it?