O months of flowering months of transformation
May without a cloud and June stabbed
I will never forget the lilacs or the roses
Or those that springtime guarded in its yielding
I will never forget the tragic illusion
The procession the cries the throng the sun
The cars weighed down by love the gifts from Belgium
The air that shudders and the road to the humming of bees
The imprudent triumph that surpasses the quarrel
The blood that is the foreshadowing of the red kiss
And those who go to die standing in the turrets
Surrounded by lilacs by a drunken nation
I will never forget the gardens of France
Similar to the prayer books of departed centuries
Or the evening’s troubling riddle of silence
The roses all along the well-worn path
The refutation of the flowers by the wind of panic
By the soldiers who passed on the wing of fear
By the delirious bicycles by the ironic cannons
By the pitiful dress of the refugees
But I do not know why this tornado of images
Brings me back always to the same stopping point
At Saint-Marthe A general Of black flower arrangements
A norman villa at the edge of the forest
Everyone keeps quiet The Enemy in the shadow rests
Someone has told us that Paris was captured tonight
I will never forget the lilacs and the roses
And the two loves that we have lost
Bouquets of the first day lilacs lilacs of Flanders
Softness of the shadow in which death disguises cheeks
And you bouquets of the retreat tender roses
Color of the distant fire roses of Anjou