They came, the foresters from the other side, the unknown to us, the hostile to our ways.
They came, and they were many.
Their host appeared at the line dividing the cedar woods
From a field long harvested that even now rose fresh and green.
The long march had warmed them.
Their caps broke over their eyes and their tired feet foundered somewhere distant.
They caught sight of us and halted.
Clearly they had not thought to find us there,
On a land where the soil was easy and the furrow close,
Quite heedless of an audience.
We raised out heads and beckoned them to come on.
The most fluent among them came over, then a second, likewise rootless and slow.
We have come, they said, to warn you of the imminent arrival of the storm, your implacable foe.
What knowledge we have of such things, we have, as you do,
Only on hearsay and from what our ancestors have confided.
Yet why is it we feel so inexplicably happy in your presence, and so suddenly like children?
We thanked them and sent them once more on their way.
Yet, prior to this, they had drunk, and their hands trembled and their eyes laughed at the edges.
Men at home among trees and with axes, able to stand their ground before some terrible fear, yet unfit for the channeling of water, or the alignment of a building, or its coating with pleasant colors,
Of the winter garden they would know nothing, nor of the economy of joy.
Undoubtedly we could have convinced and conquered them,
For the anguish before a storm is deeply moving.
And, yes, the storm was shortly to appear.
But was that really something to be talked about and to disturb the future for?
At the point we have reached, there are no urgent fears.
[MH]