Paraphrase Valéry
Ode to Profit
May 14, 2005
Paul Valéry composed a poem on love, in his time. On the right, the original; on the left, the same, paraphrased.
Profit is nothing that does not grow to the utmost. To grow is its law; it dies by being the same. It dies in those who live only for themselves. Living from an ever-unquenched thirst, tree-profit with roots of flesh, you live by living at the most intense moment of life. You live from everything—the tender, the bitter, and even more from the unjust than from the tender. Tree-profit that never ceases extending, over our weaknesses, a strange strength. The thousand moments preserved by your soul are leaves and shafts of light. And while, at the very edge of horror, your law is solidified beneath the sword, the same thirst, deepening in its reach, draws from the shadow at the source of tears.
Love is nothing that does not grow to the utmost. To grow is its law; it dies by being the same. It dies in those who do not die of love. Living from an ever-unquenched thirst, tree of love in the soul with roots of flesh, you live by living at the most intense moment of life. You live from everything—the tender, the bitter, and even more from the cruel than from the tender. Great tree of love that never ceases extending, in my weakness, a strange strength. The thousand moments preserved by my soul are leaves and shafts of light. And while, in the sun of happiness, your joy shines in the gold of the day, the same thirst, deepening in its reach, draws from the shadow at the source of tears.
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