Le Pont Mirabeau & The Backbone Flute // 1.28.21


Wrote Guillaume Apollinaire:

Below the Pont Mirabeau flows the Seine
         And so our love
     I have to be reminded
That joy comes always after pain

         Darkness comes to mark the hours
         Days carry on, I do not

Hands in hands, face to face
         While below
     Swings the bridge of our arms
Ripple our weary, eternal glances

        Darkness comes to mark the hours
         Days carry on, I do not

The lovers go on like that running water
         The lovers go on
     As life goes, unhurried
And savage, like Hope

         Darkness comes to mark the hours
         Days carry on, I do not

Pass the days, and pass the weeks
         No time is spent
    And love stays gone
Below the Pont Mirabeau flows the Seine

         Darkness comes to mark the hours
         Days carry on, I do not


& Wrote Vladimir Mayakovsky:

If you carry your faltering steps to a bridge,
thinking
how good to be down there--
then it is I,
the Seine pouring under the bridge,
who call you,
baring my rotted teeth.


Translations: mine for Apollinaire; Hayward and Reavey for Mayakovsky