Art and Poetry - Light - Eluard

Fernand Léger, “Liberté”, 1945 illustration on the poem by

Paul Eluard, “Poetry and truth” from 1942 (clandestine collection)

On my school notebooks
On my desk and the trees
On the sand on the snow
I write your name

On all pages read
On all the blank pages
Stone blood paper or ash
I write your name

On golden images
On the weapons of warriors
On the crown of kings
I write your name

On the jungle and the desert
On the nests on the broom
On the echo of my childhood
I write your name

On the wonders of the nights
On the white bread of the days
On engaged seasons
I write your name

On all my azure rags
On the musty sun pond
On the living moon lake
I write your name

On the fields on the horizon
On the wings of birds
And on the mill of shadows
I write your name

On every breath of dawn
On the sea on the boats
On the crazy mountain
I write your name

On the moss of the clouds
On the sweats of the storm
On the thick and bland rain
I write your name

On the glittering shapes
On the bells of colors
On physical truth
I write your name

On the waking paths
On the roads deployed
In the squares that overflow
I write your name

On the lamp that lights up
On the lamp that goes out
On my united houses
I write your name

On the fruit cut in half
Of the mirror and my room
On my empty shell bed
I write your name

On my greedy and tender dog
On his erect ears
On his clumsy paw
I write your name

On the stepping stone of my door
On familiar objects
On the flow of blessed fire
I write your name

On all granted flesh
On the fronts of my friends
On every hand that stretches
I write your name

On the window of surprises
On attentive lips
Far above the silence
I write your name

On my destroyed refuges
On my collapsed headlights
On the walls of my boredom
I write your name

On absence without desire
On naked solitude
On the death marches
I write your name

On returned health
On the risk gone
On hope without memory
I write your name

And by the power of a word
I'm starting my life again
I was born to know you
To name you

Freedom.

Paul Éluard wrote "Liberté" in 1942, published clandestinely on April 3, 1942 in "Poésie et vérité", then taken up in June 1942 by the magazine "Fontaine" and was again taken up, in London, by the Gaullist review "La France libre", the same year, thousands of copies were printed to be parachuted by the Royal Air Force over French soil.

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