The graceful sweep of arcs inscribed in flight, the sweetness of mien, the little cries or flourishes, generally assure that birds are held in good esteem.
Yet for the most part they are filthy, lousy little darlings with dirty ruffs, slashed sleeves, gold braid tattered and torn, with little collars and dusty aiguillettes, and – what’s more – they crap in flight, crap as they walk, crap all over the place. Very “Grand Siècle.”
How does the bird figure in the life of a man? As a surprise in his field of vision. Meaty streaks of lightning, more or less rapid. Zigzags in the third dimension. In Paris two sorts: sparrows and pigeons. All the rest, caged: particularly the little yellow birds: parakeets or canaries.
The perfect bird would fly about with such grace . . . it would descend to bring us a bit of heaven, through the agency of the Holy Ghost, of course, in arcs graceful as certain paraphs, the signature of God, good and pleased with his works and his creatures. Ask Claudel about the significance of the dove of the Holy Ghost. Are there other birds in the Christian religion, in religions generally? I note the vultures of Prometheus trying to catch my attention, Leda’s swan . . . So there already, several prepared to bestir themselves and come alive again, beyond the compilation. Thank you kindly, I have more than enough already!
All in all, what I’m describing is particularly the sparrow, the partridge, the swallow, the pigeon. (The perfect bird: I believe I’m referring to the pigeon, come to think of it, or the dove. For one thing the Holy Ghost surely was a dove, if I’m not abused. (Buse. Buzzard.))
I thought myself able to write a thousand pages on any object at all, but here I am breathless at less than five, and turning towards compilation! No, I feel that on my own (and from the bird) I can naively draw out more than that. But basically isn’t the important point to grasp the crux of the thing? By the time I have written several pages, upon rereading them I’ll see the place where that crux resides, the essential, the qualities of the bird. I really believe I’ve already found it. Two things: the little bundle of feathers, and the startling, capricious take-off into flight (the surprising take-off into flight). Besides that, the little head as well, the skull easily ground up, the matchstick legs, the opening-moving gadget, the bizarre quality of the arcs in flight. What else? Well now, this won’t be easy after all. I might tumble back into the same mistakes I made with the shrimp. So in that case it might be better to stop here with these notes, which disgust me less than a bungled opus.
I’ve also had the idea several times over – I must make note of it – have the bird speak, describe it in the first person. I’ll have to give this way a go, try my hand at this procedure.
What does the Littré have to say about birds? Once again, here’s compilation plaguing me. Who cares. Let’s take a look. Give it a try. I rouse myself from my armchair:
OISEAU (impossible to copy it all down, there are three columns, the whole of page 813 in the I-P volume and several more lines on page 814. I’m copying only the chapter headings): “1. An oviparous animal with two feet, having feathers and wings. 2. Zoological term: a class of the animal kingdom comprising the vertebrate animals whose body is covered with feathers, and whose anterior limbs generally take the form of wings, the head terminated at the front by a horny beak which covers elongated toothless jaws. 3. The king of the birds, the eagle. Jupiter’s bird, the eagle. Juno’s bird, the peacock. Minerva’s bird, the owl. Venus’ bird, the dove, the pigeon. 4. Terms of falconry. Absolutely, the bird: the bird of prey trained to the hunt. (And all the terms of falconry.) 5. Hummingbird. 6. Mockingbird. 7. Africa’s bird, the guinea hen. Golden oriole, etc. 10. Saint Luke’s bird, the steer. 11. Bird sometimes known as the common bird-eater (shell). 12. A term of heraldry. 13. A chemical term. 14. Bird’s-eye view. 15. As the crow flies. 16. Colloquialisms: for the birds, ETYMOLOGY: Ital.: uccello, augello. Low Latin: aucellus (in Salic law): from a non-Latin diminutive, avicellus, from avis, bird.
“There’s another word OISEAU, n.m. Mason’s term. Sort of small trough placed on the shoulder to carry mortar. To carry the oiseau, to be a masonry worker. ETYMOLOGY: So called by comparison with a bird, or perhaps corruption of augeau, derived from auge, trough.”
In the Littré, cited in the chapter on birds, the most beautiful expressions, which I want to retain, are the following: “All birds of prey are remarkable for a singularity whose reason is difficult to supply: it is that the males are about a third smaller and weaker than the females.” (Buffon, Oiseaux, 1, p. 89.) “The tragic actor Esopus asked to be served with a platter containing all the species of bird that sang or imitated the human voice, birds which cost him ten thousand sesterces apiece: thus the platter has been estimated a hundred thousand sesterces (22, 500 francs) (Pastoret).” Under the terms of falconry: “Branch bird, which lacks the strength to move further than from branch to branch. Ignoble birds, birds of low flight. Noble birds: high-flying birds. Unfledged birds: birds removed from the nest that have not yet flown.” Etc. Concerning the hummingbird: “Lightness, rapidity, speed, grace and vivid adornment, all belong to this little favorite.” Buffon, (Oiseaux, XI, p.2.) “Golden oriole, European oriole. Camel-bird, ostrich. Father-bird, in Cayenne, the bald jackdaw.” Historical: “De put oef put oisel.” (From little egg, little bird.) (Leroux de Linay, Proverbes, 1, p. 188.)
And there we have it. Good things are there for the taking, for learning. Yet satisfaction of noting that there’s nothing there of what I want to say and which takes in the whole bird (this sack of feathers that takes flight astonishingly). So I won’t be getting there too late. Everything remains to be said. One might have guessed.
I must also copy a rather recent little piece that I very pretentiously entitled The Bird after I’d written it. Here it is: “The bird . . . creaks and squeaks, twirls and trills, like those wooden spigots that you tap into barrel staves. (Staves?) It cheeps and chirps. Seeds and pips are found there. From seed to distilling grain, there isn’t far to go. What’s the purpose of this little alembic? What does it distill? These lifelong vocalizations, the high Kirsch-song of sparrows. Then at the time of death, those sparse drops of dark blood on the game hunter’s counter. (Hunting game?)”
Where do birds appear? In a non-citified landscape, against a dark sepia grounding of tillage, where the air is stitched with numerous green filaments up to a certain height.
Rereading what I’ve written thus far, I find several words to look up in the Littré:
BRÉCHET. Breastbone: the name given to the protruding longitudinal ridge found on the external face of the bird’s sternum.
(Sternum: odd number of bones situated for man in front of and along the midline of the thorax. Analogous part in animals. The form of the sternum of birds, like the keel of a ship, which is indispensable for their balance in flight, could make a crouched position very painful for them. Dupont de Nemours.)
BOMBER. To bulge: 1. v.t. To make convex, like a bomb, that is to say in such a way as to display a more or less spheric segment. 2. v.i. bomber: to be convex. This wall bulges.
Rebomber or rebombir, (to rebomb) do not exist, but rebondir (to bounce), rebondi, to round (rounded with weight).
DOUVES: the planks placed in a circle which make up the body of a keg and which are held together by circular bands.
ORBES. Spheres, orbs, incorrectly used by me. Orbite, orbit, would be better – which is to orbs what circumference is to a circle. Courbes, curves, would be better for what I want to describe (or parameters).
A propos of nothing at all, even with an object familiar to man for millennia, many things remain to be said. And there is much to be gained by their being said. Not only for the progress of science but for the (moral) progress of man through science. There’s another point: for man to really take possession of nature, for him to direct it, dominate it, he must accumulate within himself the qualities of each thing (nothing better to that end than to set them apart through words, to nominate them).
This seems to me a Bolshe
vistic point of view.
. . . But (another development) the dictatorship of man over nature, the elements, will never be more than a stage in the progress towards the state of perfect harmony (which one can well imagine) between man and nature, wherein the latter will receive from man as much as he takes from it.
The poet (is a moralist who) separates the qualities of the object then recomposes them, as the painter separates the colors, the light, and recomposes them in his canvas.
(Marvelous pair of birds by Ébiche seen before his works went off to Poland on September 2, 1938.)
Soberly seated side by side in a basket round as a nest, crouched like brood hens mastering their fear, their multicolored feathers lightly fluffed and puffed out, in cataleptic suspension (or truly heroic?), heads immobile, eyes wide.
Slender darts or short fat javelins,
Instead of circling roof peaks,
We are sky-rats, meaty streaks of lightning, torpedoes,
Feathery pears, lice of vegetation.
Often, stationed on some high branch,
I keep watch, benumbed and huddled like a grudge.
NOTES FOR A BIRD
My name in French unites the vowels
Beginning with an egg-shaped one
In pairs of diphthongs around the serpent
Close to me in classifications.
Unfledged at first, then a branch bird, I take off
From the tapestry in three dimensions.
Like ripe fruit I drop but, discovering my wings,
I spread them wide and flee to the heavens . . .
Graceful arcs, careful zigzags,
Repeated hops though not too far,
Sweetness of mien, faint calls and roulades,
Generally assure that we are taken as little darlings.
We’re not seen for what we often are:
Lousy little minions with dirty ruffs,
Filthy jabots, impenitent sphincters . . .
Out of our nests intended rather for our eggs,
Ovoid baskets that flake off clouds of down,
Our comfort resides in our feathers,
Eiderdowns and cushions hauled along on our backs,
Where we can only just burrow under,
Crest under wing, sometimes a foot,
Like a tramp resting on his bundles,
A traveler, head down on his valise
On a hard bench amidst the jostling . . .
You there, with your round basket, heroic brood hens,
Feathers standing on end, terror at its tips,
Do we even understand your physical distress? . . .
Light hamper easily pulverized,
Whose breastbone alone is flanked by flesh,
Stump-armed hunchback mounted on matchsticks,
Of waddling gait or hopping steps,
Shoulder feeble and forever dislocated,
Though I can spread it as a wing,
The sternum of a rachitic like a vessel’s keel
Much needed for balance in flight
But painful in a crouched position,
Anxious head, eyes wide and sometimes cataleptic,
Long supple neck, finally a bony beak covering
Very long jaws devoid of teeth.
Not a gram of fat on any limb.
In my hull I’ve stashed all away,
My gizzard filled with September seeds.
Acid gnats assure my diarrhea.
By its particular weight I know my stomach,
A stomach my wings loft to the skies
Better nerve-scribed than autumn leaves,
Articulated better than sails of a junk . . .
And I have my talons, my ferocious beak
For moments when I feel disposed to rage.
Whether I grip the branch or peck the bark,
The horn of my beak or talons equals steel.
NEW NOTES FOR MY BIRD
Once unfurled, I must take to the air,
Against a backdrop of sky, of harvests, of tilled fields,
Sleep-deprived to show off my wingspan
Which can never be studied at leisure;
And I pull myself back together again upon landing –
Limbs tucked away like blades of a pocketknife –
The top feathers settling in a way
That allows no further view of the articulations.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Other animals flee as man approaches
But only to dive into the closest burrow.
As for me, the line I inscribe on the album of the skies,
Before it fades, holds in prolonged attention
An eye that’s anxious not to lose me in the clouds’ crosshatching . . .
Meanwhile, in the woods, mysterious exchanges,
Intense diplomatic activity in the treetops,
Precipitate withdrawals, fearful attempts,
Brief ambassadorial jaunts, polite approaches,
And nobles deeply penetrating the leaves...
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
We’re also gliders with muscular motors,
Elastics torqued up in a special way,
And are, on our own, self-catapults.
All in All There Still Remains:
1. The scattered undisciplined flocks.
2. Birds like wooden spigots that creak and squeak, that cheep and chirp . . .
Turning back to the first sentence of this notebook of observations, where I said (instinctively), “It’s very likely that we understand birds better since we’ve been making airplanes,” this is how I wish to conclude:
If I have applied myself to the bird with all the attention, all the ardor of expression at my beck and call, and even at times giving precedence (through a reasoned modesty of reason) to intuitive expression over simple description or observation – that is so that we may manufacture perfected airplanes, have a better grip on the world.
We will make marvelous strides, man will make marvelous strides if he returns to things (just as we must return to the level of words in order to express things properly) and applies himself to studying them and expressing them, trusting simultaneously his eye, his reason, and his intuition, with no encumbrance to keep him from pursuing the novelties they contain – and knowing how to consider them in their essence as in their details. But at the same time he must remake them in the logos starting from the materials of the logos, which is to say speech.
Only then will his knowledge, his discoveries be solid, not fugitive, not fleeting.
Expressed in logical terms, which are the only human terms, they will then be his own, he will be able to make good on them.
He will have heightened not only his enlightenedunderstanding, but his power over the world.
He will have advanced toward joy and well-being, not only for himself, but for all.
Paris, March – September 1938
THE CARNATION
For Georges Limbour
Accept the challenge things offer to language. These carnations, for instance, defy language. I won’t rest till I have drawn together a few words that will compel anyone reading or hearing them to say: this has to do with something like a carnation.
Is that poetry? I have no idea, and it scarcely matters. For me it is a need, a commitment, a rage, a matter of self-respect, and that’s all there is to it.
I make no claim to being a poet. I believe my vision is quite commonplace.
Given an object, however ordinary, it seems to me that it invariably presents certain unique qualities which, if clearly and simply expressed, would elicit unanimous and invariable comment; they are the ones I’m trying to elicit.
What’s to be gained by this? To bring to life for the human spirit qualities, which are not beyond its capacity and which habit alone prevents it from adopting.
What sort of disciplines are required for this venture to succeed? Certainly t
hose of scientific thought, but particularly a large measure of art. And that’s why I think one day such research might also legitimately be called poetry.
The examples that follow 1 will reveal what serious groundwork this process assumes (or implies), what tools one may or must invoke, what procedures and rubrics: dictionary, encyclopedia, imagination, telescope, microscope, both ends of opera glasses, lenses for the myopic and the presbyopic, puns, rhyme, contemplation, forgetfulness, volubility, silence, sleep, etc.
One will also observe what reefs must be avoided, what others to be confronted, along with what navigation (what tacking), and what shipwrecks – what shifts in point of view.
It might well be that I’m not qualified to carry out such an undertaking – under any circumstances.
Others will come along and put to better use the procedures I point out. They will be the heroes of tomorrow’s spirit.
(Another day.)
After all, what’s so unusual about the naïve program (viable for all authentic expression) solemnly propounded above?
Probably just this: . . . that instead of feelings or human ventures, I choose as subjects the most indifferent objects possible . . . where the guarantee of the need for expression appears to me (instinctively) to reside in the object’s habitual mutism.
. . . Both a guarantee of that need for expression and guarantee of the opposition to language, to standard expressions.
Mute opposable evidence.
1
Opiniâtre. Opinionated: strongly attached to one’s opinion.
Papillotes, papillons, papilles. Paper frills, butterflies, papillae: same root as vacillate.
Déchiré. Torn or rent. From a German word skerran. Déchiqueter. To shred.
Mute Objects of Expression Page 2
