Reflecting on a Title

Reflecting on a title for a piece that is rumbling around in my head, I came upon this lovely poem.

Gilbert Bécaud
COMME UN SOUFFLE FRAGILE


Comme un souffle fragile
Ta Parole se donne
Comme un vase d'argile
Ton amour nous façonne.

Ta Parole est murmure
Comme un secret d'amour
Ta Parole est blessure
Qui nous ouvre le jour

Ta Parole est naissance
Comme on sort de prison
Ta Parole est semence
Qui promet la moisson.

Ta Parole est partage
Comme on coupe du pain
Ta Parole est passage
Qui nous dit un chemin.

Because this is new to me, I won't venture the damage of a translation but you can try the google translator and see what you get--there doesn't appear to be a lot of colloquialisms or idiosyncratic usages.

What the heck--let me give a bit of a try at least:

As a Fragile Breath

As a fragile breath
Your word is given
As a clay vase
Your love shapes us.

Your word is a murmur
Like love's secret
Your word is a wound
That opens our day.

Your word is birth
As when one leaves prison
Your word is the seed
That promises the harvest.

Your word is sharing
as cutting the bread
You word is a movement
that shows us a road.

Cross posted at ". . . recollected in tranquility. . ." to appease the vast audience there, with this note:

Looking to see if the title of the previous had been taken, I stumbled across this poem and for a moment my breath was taken away.  I know nothing of the poet, and I realize that my own translation is too literal and too close to the original--too crude.  But I hope it gives a little sense of the beauty that captured me as I stumbled through my morning routine.


So let me show the fullness of my ignorance by including this performance of the piece (seems it is a song--which makes sense from the simplicity of structure)