Aidan Rooney: Reliquary (after Ida Faubert)
Here, in a small rosewood box
lined with silver satin,
your locket still attached
to a closed gold chain.
And here a knot of pink ribbon
sheaves your sun-bleached locks
in the lined-with-silver-satin
small rosewood box.
My tired heart and sad mind
from tears shed overmuch
pine still for your good looks;
and my soul stays confined
in the rosewood box.
-----
Rondel des Reliques
Ida Faubert (1882-1969)
Dans le coffret en bois de rose,
Doublé de satin argenté,
Voici ton médaillon sculpté,
Avec ta chaîne d’or, bien close.
Voici, noués d’un ruban rose,
Tes cheveux blonds comme l’été,
Dans le coffret en bois de rose,
Doublé de satin argenté.
Vois, mon cœur las, mon cœur morose,
Après avoir tant sangloté,
Rêve toujours à ta beauté ;
Et mon âme demeure enclose
Dans le coffret en bois de rose.
Ida Faubert (1882-1969) was a complex Haitian poet, widely regarded as the first Haitian woman poet to receive recognition from the literary establishments of her time in Haiti and France. The daughter of Lysius Salomon, President of Haiti from 1879 until 1888, she was born in Port-au-Prince and educated in France where she went on to spend most of her life. In Paris, she ran with the literary and artistic crowd in the salons and bals of the roaring twenties, counting among her coterie the surrealist artists, André Desnos and Juan Miró, feminist bisexuals of the Rive Gauche such as Anna de Noailles and the mononymous Colette, and the writers Jean Richepin and Jean Vignaud.
“Reliquary” is from Ida Faubert’s sole poetry collection, Cœur des îles, published in Paris (chez René Debresse) in 1939. The poem is one of several elegies lamenting the death of her infant daughter, Jacqueline.
Adaptation and endnote copyright 2021 Aidan Rooney. “Rondel des Reliques” by Ida Faubert is in the public domain.
Vox Populi 
Read in English first. Then French. There is something left from the French class over 50 years ago. It still felt beautiful to my lips although I was murdering it.
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Glad it had that effect, Barbara.
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Devastating!
And as lovely as my next breath to draw.
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Thank you, Sean.
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