Enfants des champs [French translation]

My room looked out to the east

Yours to the west

Almost exactly the way our

Personalities differed

Before us, wherever we look

We see the countryside

Between what moos, what gets sniped 1

And everything that grows

Children of the fields, mouths made up

With blackberry lipstick

The insects scatter

As we pass

Dancing on the pedals we return 2

To our home

To play cards sleepily

In the sunbeams

Children of the fields

Lazy streams

We used to run like them

We smelt of cinders

From September to June

And for the rest of the time, of hay.

Children of the fields, it’s true it’s beautiful

All those movements

All that swarms, all that’s hot

All that’s alive

Sometimes against a window

Bang, a bird dies

You see the life leaving it

And it’s frightening

Children of the fields

Lazy streams

We used to run like them

We smelt of cinders

From September to June

And for the rest of the time, of hay.

We parted the ivy

Beat the brambles down

Spread out quincunx 3

On the riverbank

Do you hear the river

And do you hear your brother there?

Do you hear my kicks

Me kicking in your door?

Spread out quincunx

We wait for the firemen

Do you hear the river

And do you hear your brother there

Speaking to with the words of long ago

The words of the children of the fields?

Children of the fields

Lazy streams

We used to run like them

We smelt of cinders

From September to June

And for the rest of the time, of hay.

1. se faire canarder - to be shot (like a duck) i.e. wild game2. ’En danseuse’ is a cycling term meaning pedalling standing up 3. Arranged like the spots on the 5 side of a dice - I think here he means ‘spreadeagled’ i.e. hands and feet out to all four corners