Julien Payan

Nocturne

Consider the night-owl stars

Night-mist on our eyes -

Wipe it away, see impossibly far,

That star-heart where all possibility lies.

Take the cold night air to heart,

Under the bare trees in their rows -

Let the purest rain river our hair, part

Drop after drop, out of the star-flow.

Let's praise the magic moon

Cutest of them all, bright as a button:

A shame that even she, so soon

Gets up to let the sun sit down, and is forgotten.

Translated by Fred Johnston

('Ode Nocturne' is the title poem of a collection published by Les Éditions du Panthéon, Paris 2002. Julien Payan was born in Rouen in 1983 and is a musicology student. He counts among his influences Anthony Burgess and Jim Morrison).