Wyeth, Wind from the Sea (detail), 1947
17 May --
What do I care about the world's noises and those of the study? What do I care if my fellows are doubled over with laziness and sloth beside me? This morning, every forehead was heavy with sleep and stuck fast to the tabletops; deaf and slow, a snore rose from the vast Gethsemane like a trumpet's call on judgment day. I, stoic, upright and rising above all those corpses like a palm above ruins, scorning incongruous smells and sounds, I hold my head in my hand, I listen to the beating of my Thimothina-gorged heart, and my eyes plunged into the azure sky, spied through the topmost windowpane! ...
-- 18 May:
Gratitude to the Holy Spirit who has inspired these charming lines: I will embed them ion my heart: and when heaven permits me to see Thimothina againm I will offer them to her in exchange for the white socks! ...
I have entitled it The Breeze ...
In his cottony refuge
The zephyr sleeps with sweet breath:
In his nest of silk and wool
The zephyr sleeps, with gay chin!
When the zephyr lifts his wing
In his cottony refuge,
When he runs where flowers call him,
His sweet breath smells so good!
O quintessential breeze!
Quintessence of Love!
When the dew has dried,
How good it smells all day!
Jesus! Joseph! Jesus! Mary!
It's like a condor's wing
Lulling those at prayer!
Penetrating and putting us to sleep!
* * * * *
The ending is too personal and sweet: I will preserve it in the tabernacle of my soul. On my next day off, I will read it to my divine and fragrant Thimothina.
We wait in peaceful contemplation.
Arthur Rimbaud
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