[C'est l'obligé Passage....]/[It Is The Necessary Passage....]Author(s): Aimé Césaire and Lee HildrethSource: Callaloo, No. 38 (Winter, 1989), pp. 72-73Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2931139 .

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[C'est 1'oblige Passage .... I

Par Aime' Ce'saire

C'est l'oblige passage que d'ici je decline Une fin de gite Une rumination de jusants L'inventaire aussi de la longueur des secheresses Aux tetons flasques des pitons.

Assez s'atteste a la configuration meme du miracle Le versant irrecusable de la vomissure.

Cirques et criques Aboutie synthese des couloirs et des seuils Je sais qu'il m'appartient Pour l'impatience d'un temps de grandes erres fourvoyees De garder L'intact De garder le vivant Magma du mot plus fort de ses silences.

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[It Is The Necessary Passage ....]

By Aime' Csaire

It is the necessary passage that from here I decline An end of listing A rumination of ebbs The inventory too of the length of the droughts With the peaks' limp teats

Clearly bearing witness to the configuration of the miracle The indisputable slope of the vomit

Circuses and creeks Culminated synthesis of passages and thresholds I know it is my lot For the impatience of a time of great lost wanderings To keep intact To keep the living Magma of the word stronger for its silences.

-Translated by Lee Hildreth

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