— Par Nicolas Kurtovitch —
When I will be young I will be in love
I’ll walk arm in arm with a woman
with my own nonchalant pace along the lagoon
I’ll be in the gaze of passers-by
like a young man at peace
I will be in love and all my body
will be like a volcano
When I will be young I’ll have a great sword
I’ll fight against death
with sharp and steady blows
I’ll fight from sunrise
for the poor and those I protect
I will fear neither hurricanes nor fires
nor the succession of ghosts launched in attack
When I will be young I’ll leave my country
I’ll go to discover the world
the sand plains the snow-capped plateaus
the oceans submitted to storms
the overcrowded cities the bucolic valleys
no nothing in this world will hold secrets anymore
I will go without looking back in the company of the unknown
When I will be young I’ll write the beauty of the world
in the body of a woman in the gaze of a friend
in the touch of the palm on the rock in the heart of the forest
the symphonies the electric soaring the hundred drumbeats
on the century’s drum will be the poem of the immensity travelled
without heed of either time or distance
I will go write on the expanses of green grass the expanses upon expanses
When I will be young I’ll lie down on the grass
a few steps from the river I’ll rest my body
my wide-open eyes will follow the race of the clouds
the faces will parade before my eyes then the moving bodies
of those I love and nothing will come to obstruct my happiness
I will let myself go with the wind and the songs
the smell of a fire of eucalyptus twigs will perfume my life
When I will be young the world will be a great mystery
I’ll never stop running ahead with burning cheeks
When I’ll cross a bridge ten others will be adorned with garlands
So I will make this world a great puppet show
I will sing the song of the valleys of an infinite distance
I will dance the mountains the oceans the desert dances
Eyes closed listening the silences I will be a galloping horse
When I’m young I will travel the rainbow
When I will be young
Tomorrow neither yesterday nor tomorrow there is only this moment of flight
to grasp the echo from the depth of the soul
a simple white cloud
Nicolas Kurtovitch