Freedom, I write your name

On my school notebooks
On my desk and the trees
On the sand on the snow
I write your name

On all the pages read
On all the blank pages
Stone blood paper or ashes
I write your name

On the golden images
On the weapons of warriors
On the crown of kings
I write your name

On the jungle and the desert
On the nests on the broom
On the echo of my childhood
I write your name

On the wonders of the nights
On the white bread of the days
On the betrothed seasons
I write your name

On all my azure rags
On the moldy sun pond
On the living moon lake
I write your name

On the fields on the horizon
On the wings of birds
And on the mill of shadows
I write your name

On every puff of dawn
On the sea on the boats
On the demented mountain
I write your name

On the foam of the clouds
On the sweats of the storm
On the thick and faded rain
I write your name

On glittering shapes
On color bells
On physical truth
I write your name

On the awakened paths
On the open roads
On the overflowing squares
I write your name

On the lamp that lights up
On the lamp that goes out
On my united houses
I write your name

On the fruit cut in half
From the mirror and from my room
On my empty shell bed
I write your name

On my greedy and tender dog
On his erect ears
On his clumsy paw
I write your name

On the springboard of my door
On familiar objects
On the stream of blessed fire
I write your name

On all tuned flesh
On the brow of my friends
On every hand that reaches out
I write your name

On the glass of surprises
On the attentive lips
High above the silence
I write your name

On my destroyed refuges
On my collapsed headlights
On the walls of my boredom
I write your name

On absence without desire
On naked loneliness
On death marches
I write your name

On the health returned
On the risk disappeared
On the hope without memory
I write your name

And by the power of a word
I restart my life
I was born to know you
To name you

Freedom.

Paul Eluard

 

Freedom is such a wide and complex idea. I have been thinking about it for some times now. Many of the definitions I have heard all have valid points and seems to complete each others. But most of the time some crucial parts of them do not fit together and shows how much the idea of freedom can come in the way of a functionning society and its citizens.

Freedom is beautiful, hard to get and hard to keep.

Pierre