De Mexicaanse dichter en schrijver Jaime Sabines Gutiérrez werd geboren op 25 maart 1926 in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas. Zie ook mijn blog van 25 maart 2007.

The Moon

You can take the moon by the spoonful
or in capsules every two hours.
It's useful as a hypnotic and sedative
and besides it relieves
those who have had too much philosophy.
A piece of moon in your purse
works better than a rabbit's foot.
Helps you find a lover
or get rich without anyone knowing,
and it staves off doctors and clinics.
You can give it to children like candy
when they've not gone to sleep,
and a few drops of moon in the eyes of the old
helps them to die in peace.


Put a new leaf of moon
under your pillow
and you'll see what you want to.
Always carry a little bottle of air of the moon
to keep you from drowning.
Give the key to the moon
to prisoners and the disappointed.
For those who are sentenced to death
and for those who are sentenced to life
there is no better tonic than the moon
in precise and regular doses.

The Lovers

The lovers say nothing.
Love is the finest of the silences,
the one that trembles most and is hardest to bear.
The lovers are looking for something.
The lovers are the ones who abandon,
the ones who change, who forget.
Their hearts tell them that they will never find.
They don't find, they're looking.

The lovers wander around like crazy people
because they're alone, alone,
surrendering, giving themselves to each moment,
crying because they don't save love.
They worry about love. The lovers
live for the day, it's the best they can do, it's all they know.
They're going away all the time,
all the time, going somewhere else.
They hope,
not for anything in particular, they just hope.
They know that whatever it is they will not find it.
Love is the perpetual deferment,
always the next step, the other, the other.
The lovers are the insatiable ones,
the ones who must always, fortunately, be alone.

The lovers are the serpent in the story.
They have snakes instead of arms.
The veins in their necks swell
like snakes too, suffocating them.
The lovers can't sleep
because if they do the worms ear them.

They open their eyes in the dark
and terror falls into them.

They find scorpions under the sheet
and their bed floats as though on a lake.

The lovers are crazy, only crazy
with no God and no devil.

The lovers come out of their caves
trembling, starving,
chasing phantoms.
They laugh at those who know all about it,
who love forever, truly,
at those who believe in love as an inexhaustible lamp.

The lovers play at picking up water,
tattooing smoke, at staying where they are.
They play the long sad game of love.
None of them will give up.
The lovers are ashamed to reach any agreement.

Empty, but empty from one rib to another,
death ferments them behind the eyes,
and on they go, they weep toward morning
in the trains, and the roosters wake into sorrow.

Sometimes a scent of newborn earth reaches them,
of women sleeping with a hand on their sex, contented,
of gentle streams, and kitchens.

The lovers start singing between their lips
a song that is not learned.
And they go on crying, crying
for beautiful life.

Vertaald door W. S. Merwin

De Franse schrijver en dichter Jacques Audiberti werd geboren op 25 maart 1899 in Antibes. Zie ook mijn blog van 25 maart 2007.

Uit: Bâton et Ruban

„VAUBAN, dictant. – en liaison avec la cochonnerie, par l’entremise des glands, nous examinerons les avantages des forêts. Il se trouve assez de gens qui possèdent de mauvaises terres de mince rapport, qu’ils pourraient avec profit couvrir de forêts, attendu que, la première dépense faite, le surplus de la mise ne consisterait qu’en des entretiens… Vous

suivez, monsieur Ragot?

RAGOT. – Qu’en des entretiens… Vous voulez dire des soins?

VAUBAN, péremptoire. – … Des entretiens, ce qui procurerait par la suite un bien inestimable, le fonds conservé sans aucune perte portant un intérêt continu qui ne serai exposé qu’à la négligence du propriétaire. Il faudrait lui laisser la jouissance de ce fonds et ne point… et ne point…… sous prétexte que la marine en a besoin, ou la sculpture, priver une

famille du bois de la forêt, pourvu que les affaires du roi n’en souffre pas… Une entreprise ne fût’elle que de cent arpents ne manquerait pas d’être fort honorable, qui, dès les quinze premiers mois, rembourse la dépense si l’on fait le coup en bois de moule…

RAGOT. – En bois de moule? Vous maintenez?

VAUBAN. – En bois de moule… parfaitement… Quoi? Non?… Tel qu’on en voit sur les ponts de Paris, qui se vend d’ordinaire quarante’cinq cinq à cinquante francs l’arpent, pris et débité sur les lieux aux frais du marchand. Vous rechignez. Contesteriez’vous ces prix?

RAGOT. – Monsieur de Vauban, comment songerai’je, moi cafard, moi hanneton, comment songerai’je à vous quereller à propos de quelque industrie humaine que ce soit! Je me permets, sans plus, de vous souligner le contradictoire entre l’extrême nouveauté de vos vues et la vieillerie souvent barbare et rebutante de votre langage. Votre bois de moule, on l’appelle bois de chauffage en rendant mieux l’idée. Quant à nommer cochonnerie la manière la plus experte et la plus rentable d’élever les pourceaux et les truies, il me surprendrait que nul n’en sourie. »

Zie voor onderstaande schrijvers ook mijn blog van 25 maart 2007.

De Zwitserse schrijfster en beeldhouwster Erica Pedretti werd geboren op 25 maart 1930 in Šternberk (Tsjechië).

De Vlaamse schrijver Filip De Pillecyn werd te Hamme aan de Durme geboren op 25 maart 1891.