Poems Found in Translation: Poem in Occitan by Ives Roqquetta ( Yves Rouquette)- by A. Z. Foreman

Poems Found In Translation: “Ives Roquetta: Every Language (from Occitan)”

---

Ives Roquetta: Every Language (from Occitan)

Posted: 19 May 2014 04:43 PM PDT

That this poem is written in Occitan is, of course, part of the point. 

Every Language
By Ives Roquetta (known as Yves Rouquette in French)
Translated by A.Z. Foreman

Every language is spoken at home
Or naught but noise, powerless against silence.
The words let themselves be led
To the slaughterhouse like those oxen
You saw grazing down in the dell
Horn against horn, as if still
Yoked hard together.
They are also like the dead
When the earth molds them
Into gods once and forever.
Still, you can't ask everything of them.
They're just what you are.

The Original:

Tota Lenga
Ives Roquetta

Tota lenga es la de l'ostal
o pas que bruch sens poder sul silenci.
Las paraulas se daissan menar
al masèl coma aqueles buòus
que vesiàs pastencar dins la comba
bana contra bana, e coma
s'èran juntats pel jo encara.
Revèrtan los mòrts atanben
quand la tèrra se los pasta
per los far Dieus un còp per totes.
Mas i pòdes pas tot demandar.
Son çò que siás.