#le lac

I love my life

And I live it well

It’s the furthest place

From that thing called hell

A paradise full of grace

A hermit in his shell

Here there is no strife

It’s a rather painless case

This life: my own, the world

Wherein I dwell, in a whorl

My wings are given flight by the wind:

I am the Winged Victory of Samothrace

And in the potent light of day, I steep

In the drink of the night: I’ve won, the end

To this raucous fight (with the deep, I contend)

And taken by the fleet feet of a dancer, I twirl

In ecstasy, like a ray of light made radiant

By bar tracery refracted in, as it creeps

Through, a cathedral’s oculus, defiant

Of every will to pretend, I unfurl

My masts, a ship intent on meeting the Grandest —

Its sacerdotal — end and cheating its wanting

To bend back away from banks of life

To retreat from the grace-soaked sands,

Reviled by the fact that no one except

Myself holds the responsibility to accept

His own defeat: my death draws nearer

To me in worrying that deeper water lies ahead of the shore

But when I close my eyes, the beacon of joy,

A jewel in the shrubbery (the light in the trees),

Is beckoning me, “move forward, come closer: explore

My depths and find beauty everpresent therein;

Clearer water lies within,” so in faithful duty I deploy

Myself into the sea, passing beyond the boundary

Of this liminal space called my vessel wherein

My body’s calls to action radiate, long gone, into the void

Silently resonant, vibrations of wind in a bottle, devoid

Of meaning to the mind, and finally I reach the end

Of my swim to the shore, unscathed by the bygone perils

Of doing my duty to this world which I love

So dearly; and love endures on the Isle

Of Samothrace; this, its crowning laurels:

A somatic being emerges (extracted of infinite marbles

By Daedalus) in victory, a white-winged dove

Whose function and form are one in the same while

The beauty of its being, in sync with all,

Can never know the fall: the light of being

Alive is to be the light itself, never once alighting to the call

Of strife; instead, take flight and ascend beyond the clouds

And find yourself diffuse (heavenly body rarified, a being

Whose particles could not ever comprehend the shrouds

We use to protect ourselves, in fear of impending doom);

However, always make room for others to settle themselves

Amidst the glory of your space, and be like the jewel of that beacon

Which beckoned you here to Samothrace, celebratory in joy.

As an angel — a dove — once told me

When she found myself steeped in peril

At the park, “Enjoy yourself always,

You must trust me on this, really, and

All your days will with heaven meet;

If you do this fast, without any thinking,

You are set to gain the fleet feet of

A dancer lost in ecstatic praise

Of her benevolent creator whom (in love)

Gave her the grips to raise herself up

And take a sip from the Lord’s cup,”

And from this moment on life

Was different: devoid of strife; so

I loved it, and I lived it well,

And there wasn’t a soul — no,

Not a one, and still not even

To this day — who could or can

Convince me otherwise: that heaven

Is here and now in the present

And for this I could never resent

My creator: this life is the furthest place from hell;

Rather it is paradise, full of grace,

A veritably painless case: a stately

Pleasure-dome with caves of ice

In which I dwell, my home: this life.

Antoine Picard possède une conscience aigu de ce qui est, de l'indicible matérialité des choses du monde. S'il photographie avec aisance de formidables paysages - au sens propre, il a acquis une fine connaissance du paysage et du close-up. Cela lui permet de montrer que ce qui semble petit ou grand par sa dimension est perceptible. Cela lui a permis de rendre la dimension de grand des paysages enchanteurs. Ce photographe allie avec une sensibilité certaine les choses de la vie. Cela lui permet de montrer, en un sens, que ce qui est grand est finalement moins imposant que l'on ne le pense. A lire ses séries "Le Plateau", ou "Le Lac", on ne peut que s'émerveiller devant le regard du photographe qui parvient à saisir les éléments formant ce qui est. Merci de bien vouloir apporter votre support à l'édition de son déjà troisième ouvrage, "Le Lac". Bien que la vie ne soit pas une histoire de mérite, lui, mérite votre soutien.

أيا دهر , رويدك! و انتنّ , ايتها الساعات الخليلة

قفن !

لكي ننعم بأجمل أيّامنا

و النّعيم محكوم دوما بالزّوال.

Tragedia and Two Songs at Le Lac 

7 May 2022

Alphonse de Lamartine by François Gérard (1831) – Source: Wikimedia In my last post, I shared some of my favorite quotes from Alphonse de Lamartine. Today, I would like to tell you a little bit about my favorite poem of his, “Le lac” (The Lake). “Le lac” is inspired by Lamartine’s personal life. In August 1817, he was supposed to meet his muse Julie Charles at the Lac du Bourget. Unfortunately,…