In
1916, the Swiss-born poet and novelist we know as Blaise Cendrars became a
French citizen. He was not quite 30 and already a leader of the Modernist
movement.
He
had also lost his right arm fighting in the French Foreign Legion in Champagne.
When the next war rolled around, Cendrars was with the British Expeditionary
Force during the German invasion in 1940; the book he wrote about it was seized
by the Gestapo before it could be published.
Like
that was ever going to silence him.
Cendrars
wrote many poems about his experience in World War I. I love today’s because of
him likening his lost hand to a constellation.
“Orion”
C'est mon étoile
Elle a la forme d'une main
C'est ma main montée au ciel
Durant toute la guerre je voyais
Orion par un créneau
Quand les
Zeppelins venaient bombarder
Paris ils
venaient toujours d'Orion
Aujourd'hui je l'ai au-dessus de ma tête
Le grand mât perce la paume de cette main qui doit
souffrir
Comme ma main coupée me fait souffrir percée qu'elle
est par un dard continuel
It’s
my constellation
It’s
shaped like a hand
It’s
my own hand high in the sky
All
through the war through a gap I saw Orion
The
Zeppelins that came to bomb Paris always came from Orion
Today
it’s above my head
The
long pole pierces the palm of the hand that must suffer
As
my severed hand makes me suffer pierced constantly by a spear
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