Occitan poetry

Sylvie Berger is a photographer, writer and journalist well known in the country of Montpellier, Since her early childhood she has been a familiar of the wildest and most fascinating landscapes of this area, photographing plants, insects, fog in the rocky desertic mountains...

More recently she engaged herself deeply in the occitan literary and cultural life, publishing with her associate Georges Souche a wonderful book of photographs and occitan poetry: Caminant.

Her occitan poems have all be written since the beginning of the XXIth century and appeared in the literary journal "Oc". She is thus a true occitan poet of the new millenium, and she brings to Occitan poetry a very exquisite sensibility that we hope will be perceived to some degree in translation by the English reader.

Polsa de cotèla

Plòu
solelha
sus l'arc de San Martin ai passat la comba
de polsa de cotèla sus mas sòlas
ai copat tras los cants
per ganhar ton còr

Fraires d'arma

Un jorn soi tombada dins lo cèl de ton agach
e ton arma a passat tras lo miralh de la meuna.
Ma nuòch s'es estelada.
Lo resson d'un mond besson a descobèrt un abís
… l'embriagant rescontre de doas armas sòrres.
Tròp parièras per s'aimar,
tròp parièras per s'endevenir indiferentas
Fraires d'arma.

4 - L'òrdre del mond

Tas mans al bas de mon esquina
Tas dents per atissar ma nuca
Ta lenga per abeurar la meuna
Tas labras al cròs de mas aurelhas
E tresviran la rason, la tristesa
E l'òrdre del mond…

5 - Calimàs

Quora las cigalas s'apodèran del cèl
Conflat de lors zonzonaments
Quora lo vent se refaudís al fons de sa conca
Quora la cairissa brausís lo pè nud
Quora d'incèrtas volutas enmiratjan nòstras dralhòlas
Quora a trauca-ombrina jòga lo solelh de la dormida
Amb la tafa insolenta dels lençòls
Reprene buf e vida,
Aplantar lo temps,
Lo temps d'una estrencha…

iris dust

It rains. Sun shines. On the arch of sky I've passed the coomb with iris dust on my soles I've cut through songs for winning your heart.

Soul brothers

One day I fell into the sky of your glance And your soul crossed the mirror of mine. My night became full of stars. The echo of a twin world unveiled an abyss... intoxicating encounter of two sister souls. Too similar for loving each other, Too similar to be indifferent to each other.

Soul brothers.

The order of the world

Your hands on the lower part of my back Your teeth to annoy my nape Your tongue to water mine Your lips within the hollow one of my ears And they overwhelm reason, sadness And the order of the world

Canicule

When the cicadas become master of the sky Inflated by their stridulations When the wind hides itself at the far end of its conch When the lapiaz burns the barefoot When uncertain volutes put mirages on our paths, When sleep's sun plays to pierce darkness With the white insolent of sheets, Let's rediscover blow and life, Suspend time, just for the while of an embrace...

- August 2005 -

see Sylvie's wonderful artistic and literary website (in French and Occitan)

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