My American Friends

The Strange Choice of Chance

 

If by chance, on a summer’s evening, the fleeting splotches of a golden light landed on your arms,

I hope you’ll let them touch you.

 

If by chance, drafts, wafts of melancholy air tried to close you in

I hope you’ll let them pass you by

 

If by chance, on a cold winter morning, crimson fog came in to surround you

I hope you’ll let it wrap you up

 

If by chance the dull roar of the surf tried to lure you towards the ravines

I hope you’ll continue on your way

 

I hope that you’ll arrive wherever it be, always curious and always gourmand.

I hope you’ll suddenly have nothing more to say, nothing more to tell.

I hope you’ll say that what happens to you is the luck that was due to happen to you

 

I hope you’ll choose the luck which you have chosen to bring about.

Let chance surprise you!

I hope you’ll choose to "rendez-vous "with the luck of chance.

I hope you’ll see it from afar, appearing like a mirage,

Like a faint and almost shapeless silhouette,

Like a blurred splotch advancing toward you.

I hope you’ll see it grow slowly larger,

Regularly.

This trembling,

Evanescent chance.

Step by step.

Your steps, its steps.

I hope you’ll see it as though through an icy fogged window

I hope you’ll be astonished, dazzled, captivated.

I hope you’ll be flustered

Staggered

I wish you the strange choice of chance for this year fast approaching.

 

 

Jean Humenry