Justine [English translation]

We always saw her passing by all hunched over

under the weight of a bundle of wood but more often of two.

We saw her spend the morning and the evening,

her hair pulled back, always dressed in black.

From the perspective of ten years old, I believed her to be older

than that trunk of the olive tree, those twigs on the trellis.

But I heard my mother from the back of the kitchen

cry out, cry out, cry out: "Hello, hello, Justine."

She lived down there in the very oldest house,

the one that is almost lost in the blue of the horizon.

Barricaded in her home as if in a castle,

she counted her days as one counts a treasure.

From the perspective of fifteen years old, I found her quite ugly

with her immense feet and her stiff gait.

But I heard my mother from the back of the kitchen

cry out, cry out, cry out: "Hello, hello, Justine."

One morning in the street, we did not hear her,

but a few days later, the death knell sounded.

She had died alone at the age of ninety years.

You die alone at that age even if surrounded by children.

From the perspective of thirty years old, that broke something,

much as you sober up when the sky turns pink in the morning.

I no longer had my mother at the back of the kitchen,

and it was I who cried out, "Adieu, adieu, Justine."