Spring ’21 can’t shake off the uncertainty of COVID, so leave it to French poetry to capture the complexity of promise, pleasure, and pain we are all experiencing with the pandemic at bay but still ravaging countries like India, Brazil, and others around the globe. I am feeling relief and intoxication at the ability to be outdoors and the temptation of travel farther from home, but I am cautioned against visiting family, friends, and our dear producers in France.
I came across this poem on the internet, and it speaks to that lingering sense of confinement felt at the continuing inability to visit and travel abroad.
A poem by André Lemoyne, Poète et romancier français born le 27 novembre 1822 à Saint-Jean-d’Angély, Lemoyne died 28 février 1907 in his hometown.
Here is the original poem in French with my stylistic interpretation from the blunt Google Translate into English.
Titre : Fleur solitaire, (1896).
À Madame de Bertha.
Par un soir ténébreux de l’arrière-saison.
Dans un coup de rafale une graine emportée,
Tombant contre les murs d’une haute prison,
Entre de vieux pavés mal joints s’est arrêtée.
Dans ce lit de hasard elle dort tout l’hiver,
Sous des blocs de granit froidement inhumée ;
Mais quand au tiède avril le ciel bleu s’est ouvert,
Elle tressaille et germe où le vent l’a semée.
Alors, comme sortant d’un funèbre sommeil,
Elle émerge à grand’peine et s’exhausse de terre,
Et d’un suprême effort aspirant au soleil
Elle frémit d’espoir, la pauvre solitaire.
Puis, grâce à de longs jets flexibles et rampants,
S’attachant par saut brusque ou par lente caresse,
Comme la vigne vierge et les rosiers grimpants,
Elle escalade enfin la haute forteresse.
Quand elle arrive au bout de son rude chemin,
Montant jusqu’au rebord d’une étroite fenêtre,
Elle étale sa fleur près d’un visage humain
Qu’elle a vu triste et pâle à la grille apparaître.
À plein cœur exhalant son parfum printanier,
La fleur s’épanouit… et meurt dans la soirée ;
Mais elle s’est ouverte aux yeux du prisonnier,
Qui seul a pu la voir, qui seul l’a respirée.
André Lemoyne.
Dear Mme de Bertha.
On a dark evening late in the season.
In a burst of wind a seed takes flight,
Falling against the high walls of a prison,
Between old, poorly joined stones it lodges itself.
In this bed of chance she sleeps all winter,
Under blocks of coldly buried granite;
But when in lukewarm April the blue sky opens,
She quivers and germinates where the wind has sown her.
So, as if emerging from a mournful sleep,
She emerges with great difficulty and rises from the ground,
And with a supreme effort aspiring to the sun
She shudders with hope, struggling alone.
Then, thanks to veins of cascading water,
Attaching itself by sudden leap or by slow caress,
Like a vine’s new growth and climbing roses,
She finally climbs the high fortress.
When she comes to the end of her rough road,
Going up to the ledge of a narrow window,
She spreads her flower near a human face
That she saw sad and pale at the gate appear.
With full heart exhaling its spring fragrance,
The flower blooms … and dies in the evening;
But it opened up to the prisoner’s eyes,
Who alone could see it, who alone breathed it.
Do you feel that same longing to break free, the deep desire to connect with others, but the restraint of caution? We are returning to a world forever changed, fraught with fear and uncertainty, yet full of excitement and hope.
Energized by this time, our Avid Vines team is embracing spring and the re-birth and growth it brings.
We are preparing to add another sparkling organic wine to our lineup and are putting the finishing touches on the Avid Vines Wine Club.
This is our journey, and we invite you to join us.
As the Avid Lifestyle reminds us, when we focus on this moment, we find gifts in the present.