Partir c'est mourir un peu (Saying adieu to the summer of 2006)

Partir c'est mourir un peu
C'est mourir? ce qu'on aime
On laisse un peu de soi-meme
En toute heure et dans tout lieu
C'est toujours le deuil d'un voeu
Le dernier vers d'un poeme
Partir c'est mourir un peu
C'est mourir? ce qu'on aime
Et l'on part, et c'est un jeu
Et jusqu'a l'adieu supreme
C'est son ame que l'on seme que l'on seme en chaque adieu
Partir, c'est mourir un peu...

Edmond Haraucourt
Rondel de l'Adieu
Song of Farewell


To part is to die a little
To die to what we love
One leaves a little of one's self
In every hour and in every place
It is always the mourning of a wish
The last verse of a poem
To part is to die a little
To die to what we love
And one leaves, and it's a game
And until the final farewell
With one's soul one makes One's mark at each goodbye
To part is to die a little
To part is to die a little

Translated to English by Edmund Hodges

Reminded me of this poem:

We are all dying to know what is going
to happen when we're dead. Even if we pretend
we're not, we are. Just look at all of us

Growing Older. Not one turning back
in her bones, not one hair going from gray
to black by itself. The body seems bent

On decline, The brain gradually loses
interest in the things of the world.
We've all seen the truly ancient ones,

Waiting in their chairs at the last train stop.
The conductor is nodding to them, and
they are allowed to go on, beyond the station.

They salute us with their lucky tickets.
They look so happy to be on their way;
we almost grow younger just watching them.

Joyce Sutphen
Coming Back to the Body

Joyce Sutphen lives in Chaska, Minnesota and teaches at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, American Poetry Review, Atlanta Review and other journals, and her first book, Straight Out of View (Beacon Press, 1995) won the Barnard New Women Poets Prize. Her second book, Coming Back to the Body, was published by Holy Cow! Press in 2000, and Holy Cow! Press recently reprinted Straight Out of View (2001).