CAMILLE CLAUDEL


           
            I showed her where to find gold,
                             But the gold that she found was her own.
          Auguste Rodin


Ma tres chere Camille, my pupil, my mistress                           Je te honore
Aurora stealing from shadows to tint
   a rose petal                                                                   Je t’apprecie
Auburn hair streams like lava to your nymph’s waist
Your brow bears the air of a proud ship tempest-tossed             Je t’admire
Green eyes pale as forest shoots
            Skitter wild, wild like those of a timid hart                                Je te cheris
A voluptuous mouth to seal for aeons The Kiss
Throat, a white-water gorge in a mantle of lace                         Je te desire            
Marmoreal breasts my warm fingers tweak              
          and mould to perfection                                        Je t’embrasse
Teasing tetins into the ascendant –
          ah, framboises d’ambroisie                                   Je t’adore
Torso swaying to the willow at the Clos Payen      
Body arched back like Cupid’s curved brow                              Je te deguste
Kneeling, your back resembles an amphora                                  
into which I drown in nectar                                           Je t’aime
Limbs slim and glabrous as supple creepers                                   
through which serpents writhe                                        Je te possede
Snatches of coppery maidenhair entrance your grotto  
O sculptress sculpted, my rose figurine                                      Je te devore
I set you up in marble
And yet on the Meudon road, crouching                                     Je te plains
in undergrowth to watch me pass                            
You are filthy-haggard and quite insane                                      Je te laisse partir


                                                            Michael Small
December, 1990

    published Harvard Review, no. 2, Fall, 1992, USA

   revised version, March, 2017

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