Step by Step
— after Paul Valéry— in memoriam Emily Gaynor Rothman (1964-2020)
1.
Tes pas, enfants de mon silence,
Saintement, lentement placés,
Vers le lit de ma vigilanc
Procèdent muets et glacés.
Personne pure, ombre divine,
Qu’ils sont doux, tes pas retenus!
Dieux!…tous les dons que je devine
Viennent à moi sur ces pieds nus!
Si, de tes lèvres avancées,
Tu prépares pour l’apaiser,
À l’habitant de mes pensées
La nourriture d’un baiser,
Ne hâte pas cet acte tendre,
Douceur d’être et de n’être pas,
Car j’ai vécu de vous attendre,
Et mon coeur n’était que vos pas.
2.
Your slow and saintly steps advance
In stillness towards my bed. Awake,
I listen in a kind of trance
To the muted, frozen sounds they make.
O purest person, holy shade,
Your tentative steps are so sweet!
Gods! Every gift you’ve ever made
Comes to me on these naked feet!
If, as your sweet lips advance,
You are prepared to offer bliss
To my starved mind’s inhabitants,
To nourish me with just a kiss,
Don’t hurry us through what we’ll do,
Sweet being and non-being, don’t,
For I’ve lived waiting just for you,
And my heart was your steps alone.
3.
Well, Paul, this verse is nicely turned,
But I’m afraid it isn’t much. In fact,
It’s sort of thin. Yes, you burned
For something vital that you lacked,
And I can understand how you
Might feel so much desire late
At night, alone, and wish it true
That you had brought some sweet, hot date
Whose name, apparently, you don’t
Recall, back home and she had gone
To get some water, check her phone,
Etc. The fact there isn’t one
Detail, however, gives the game
Away. Who is this girl? Is she
For real? Does she have a name?
Does she exist, like you and me?
4.
I guess not. And you say as much.
She’s merely your own heart. Look, I
Know this isn’t fair as such,
And yes, I probably should try
To learn more of your life before
I open fire on the dead,
But honestly, isn’t there more
To love than what’s inside your head
When lying by yourself in bed?
She’s mute and cold, divine and pure?
That’s what you want? It’s what you said.
Seems sort of weird, but you seem sure:
Her steps the children of your silence,
Merely a shadow, merely part
Of you. But doesn’t that do violence
To love? For can love even start,
5.
Much less grow good and strong and real,
Without another person who
You love? Isn’t that the deal?
Isn’t that what we call true,
As opposed to fantasy,
Mere music in the dead of night
When you are all alone and free
To dream up some immortal sprite?
The longing here is lovely, verses turned
Like diamonds, but not good enough.
For in the real world, as I’ve learned,
Deep love burns more like coal. It’s rough.
Fuck dreams. Oh wait, you can’t do that.
Please excuse the witticism,
But in love, this life is where it’s at.
Your purity is narcissism.
6.
I’ve messed up every job I ever had.
Dave, it’s 4am. Just try to sleep.
I tried to help my brother. It’s so sad…
You did your best. He was a junkie. Sleep…
I couldn’t fix my father.
No one could.
Too much the renegade for higher ed.
The school went broke. My books aren’t…
No, they’re good…
Let’s face it, I’ve failed. I’d be better off…
But I love you because you’re kind, she’d say,
And then Just let me hold you. Here. And then
She would and I’d drift off. And in the day
I’d recollect that love, as now, again.
Sometimes I still feel I’ve failed every test
But one: heartbreak. My heart breaks with the best.
As a young man, David J. Rothman was fortunate to study with Mark Strand, Derek Walcott, Seamus Heaney, Czeslaw Milosz and Robert Fitzgerald, among others. He went on to a live a life in poetry, and in 2024 won the Karen Chamberlain Lifetime Achievement Award for Poetry in Colorado. His most recent books are a textbook, Learning the Secrets of English Verse (Springer 2022), co-authored with Susan Spear, and My Brother’s Keeper (Lithic 2019), which was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award. After many years in Crested Butte and Boulder, he now lives in Salt Lake City.
Translating, critiquing Valéry is fine work, but easily surpassed by that ending, that heartbreak test, which hits like a seventh wave.