Les Hautes Lumières

After the night
Before the day
And through the reed beds
After the night
Before the day
I will go seek, the high lights

To the innocent ones with full hands
I'll take you to throw medals into the blue water of the fountains
And pick up again those visions we used to offer each other
Like crowns
Those visions we exchanged to tell each other, to remember
I am a watchman, you are a museum
I want to feel the mint leaves crack under our teeth
With the chlorophyll escaping

And make you listen to the sound of bells made by the snapping of the flag halyards
Against the masts, with in the background the great crash of the sea bringing back
And above the procession of cargo ships of low white clouds
I would like to introduce you to the cyprine women and the bolqueens
Let them dress us in robes and diadems at the crossroads of Amsterdam
And of the 80th while I put fabric bracelets on your wrist
That will become flower bracelets, then ribbons, then violins

I bear the coat of arms of my clan
I have now engraved it on the visible face of my heart
But it doesn't hurt, reassure yourself on the contrary
I had our sparkling memories embroidered on night coats
That my weaver brothers, drapers of canut, offered me
I have my hawsers in hand, I am ready

After the night
Before the day
And through the reed beds
After the night
Before the day
I will offer you the high lights

To the innocent ones with full hands I take you to dive into the Seine
And swim in the strong currents of Beauchamp
Swim in the rivers, go up the streams
Then take a hot bath, where I will wash your skin
With donkey milk, before drying your body myself
Like before, when we were teenagers

I want to make love in the fields, in the clearings, in taxis
I want to make love everywhere, even on the rooftops of Paris
I want to reside in the hollow of your neck, and in your sheets scented with lilacs
While a mother wrapped in a red shawl blesses our foreheads
Silently with crosses of camphor balm

I will show you how to pick the white balls of the snowberries
To burst them under our feet and between our fingers
Before going to watch the light of a flickering street lamp
And wavering on the banks of the sleeping river
Whose gusts of wind fill the surface

I want to offer this cigarette to my mother
This cigarette after the war and its vanilla scent
I take you to see the pink granite of its islands that cannot be moved
But it's to protect us
I take you to replay everything, maybe lose everything
But maybe also grab everything, rob everything, win everything

After the night
Before the day
And through the reed beds
After the night
Before the day
I will offer you the high lights

To the innocent ones with full hands I take you to see
Taulet, Cavour, Siena and Navone
Touch the faience of the streets of Lisbon
And the white marble, smooth and shiny of the palaces

I want to hear the Salam of the drivers
And who shouts to us, children I take you to Orléans if you like
I want to offer you the tinkling of silver cutlery against crystal
And the precious words of mine

I want to listen to the stories of the elders again and again
These millennial stories that come back to life
We met three thousand years ago, we meet again now
And our children will do the same

I take you far from the claws of anger, far from regrets, far from nausea
I take you far from barbarism and the smell of burnt kerosene
I take you to run after girls, after boys, after dreams
And contemplate the living, those people we sometimes meet
And who make us fall in love for two, for three

We still have to travel the earth
We have to find a hundred thousand sisters and a hundred thousand brothers
To never be alone in cemeteries again
So on the Palatine Hill, above the Byzantine domes
Soon we will be stationed, we will arm our arrows with diamonds
To become Sagittarians and reach, the high lights

After the night
Before the day
And through the reed beds
After the night
Before the day
I will offer you the high lights

After the night
Before the day
And through the reed beds
After the night
Before the day
I will offer you the high lights