MISUNDERSTANDING

MISUNDERSTANDING

What’s in it for you to stir up
My too tender heart?
Why do you inflame
My too active brain with madness?
You know very well
–Or don’t you know?-
–In spite of an invincible love-
There are too, many differences between us
Between city-dwellers and peasants.

Their mockery has wounded me
And my audacity has wounded them
–Why that understanding (misunderstanding)
Eternally between us?
–Why mock is
Scorn us
Make fun of us
Although we love you
The living sap of your living heart
Of your bare earth–oh my Country!
My Brittany. My love. My Life.
They love you too–they say–
–Yes then! Your brilliant multicoloured skirt
Your green woods. Your streams.
Your golden heath. Your alluring seas.
Your birds and your flowers.

But they should be repulsed
To hold between their white fingers
A handful of Soil of their Country
Soaked so often with the sweat
–and blood-
Of generations of Bretons.

Because of love for you
Sacred Soil of my Country
We suffer that disrespect
–done to you-
To be despised for loving you too much
Brittany, my only love
For you all my strength until the last spark
Until the hour when you will open my arms
On my rageless and lifeless body
While my arent Soul passes
Toward the Paradise of our Race.

June 1968.

Translated by Lenora Timm

This poem in breton