there is a poem "bleuet" by Apollinaire, translated by David Nice as follows:
Young man
Of twenty
You who have seen such terrible things
What do you think of the men from your childhood
You know what bravery is and cunning
You have faced death more than a hundred times
You do not know what life is
Hand down your fearlessness
To those who shall come
After you
Young man
You are joyous your memory is steeped in blood
Your soul is red also
With joy
You have absorbed the life of those who died beside you
You are resolute
It is 1700 hours and you would know
How to die
If not better than your elders
At least with great piety
For you are better acquainted with death than life
O sweetness of bygone days
Slow moving
beyond all memory.
Written during WWI. Poulenc set it to music at the start of WWII. Worth the hearing to get the sense of location/dislocation of the poem.
Because the French soldiers wore blue, they were called "bleuets." However, I was so busy trying to get something that was both soft focus and high key, I completely ignored the song/poem requirement. Hence my title, in the plural not the singular, found after submission.
Jomari is amazing to have found the poem. The translation is really for her. (The rest of you can go to the original French).
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Lovely high-key image. I feel the softness is more due to the high-key, low contrast which fades it to 'barely there' rather than really being soft focus or blur.
I am not familiar with your song. I Googled and found and listened to a French song of that name. Unfortunately I have not been able to find an English translation of the lyrics. I did get enough information to get the gist of what it is about, and it is very poignant. I enjoyed listening to it, so thank you for introducing me to it.
Found a book with this title but a different first line - good enough for me :) I like this but would have been torn between this crop and taking the stray berry off the right since you couldn't clone it in Basic. I like a little more detail/contrast, but that's personal preference. Voted earlier.
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