Boaz Asleep Through Time

“Boaz Asleep” (2002)
Translated by Steven Monte
From Selected Poems by Victor Hugo

Boaz lay down burdened with fatigue and the heat.
He had been threshing in his granary all day.
And then he made his bed in his usual place.
Boaz went to sleep among the bushels of wheat.

This ancient man possessed vast fields of wheat and corn.
Although he was rich, he had a love of justice still.
There wasn’t any mud in the water of his mill.
There wasn’t any hell in the fire of his forge.

His beard was streaked with silver, like a stream’s April surface.
His sheaves were neither miserly nor filled with bitterness.
Whenever he saw a poor woman gleaning wheat
He’d say to his workers, ‘Let some ears fall on purpose.’

This man walked far away from pathways choked with weed,
Clothed in a white robe and his integrity.
His sacks of grain, like public fountains, flowed plentifully,
Always spilling over on the side of those in need.

Boaz was a kind lord and loyal relative,
Generous to everyone, though prudent every time.
Women looked at Boaz more than all the young men.
For the young man is handsome, but the old is sublime.

O ld men, returning to the source of life, forego
The changing days and enter changelessness again.
And though you see a fire in the eyes of young men,
In the eyes of an old man you can see a glow.

*

And so Boaz slept among his own in the evening.
The reapers lay like dark mounds piled in a row
Next to the millstones one might mistake for ruins.
A nd all of this took place a very long time ago.

The tribes of Israel had a judge for a leader.
Troubled by the footprints of giants in the mud
Nomadic peoples wandered with their tents across an earth
Still soft and dripping from the wake of the flood.

*

Just as Jacob slept and Judith slept, Boaz lay there
Underneath a bed of leaves and gently closed his eyes.
For when the gate of heaven opened over his head
A dream went out and drifted downwards through the skies.

And in this dream Boaz saw an oak tree grow out of
The middle of his stomach and ascend into the blue.
A nation climbed upward like the links of a chain:
A king sung at the bottom and a God died above.

And Boaz started speaking to his soul in a murmur,
‘How can this ever come to pass in my life?
The number of my years has now gone over eighty.
A nd I don’t have a son. And I no longer have a wife.

It has been a long time since the one who shared my bed,
O Lord, has departed from my side and gone to yours;
And we are still very much a part of each other:
She is half-living still and half of me is dead.

How can I believe a race will yet be born from me?
How is it still possible for me to have children?
When one is young, every morning is triumphant:
The day rises up from the night like victory.

But when one is older, the winter makes one shiver.
I’m alone and old now: night will fall on me soon.
I’m already, God, bending my soul toward the tomb,
The way a thirsty bull leans his head toward the river.’

Boaz was speaking in a dream, as if drunk,
Turning his swimming eyes toward God in his sleep.
A cedar doesn’t smell a rose growing near its trunk,
And Boaz didn’t see the woman lying at his feet.

*

While he was sleeping there, Ruth, a Moabite,
Lay down with her breasts bared at Boaz’s feet,
Hoping for some sort of unfamiliar ray
In which understanding would flare up like a light.

Boaz didn’t know that a woman was there,
A nd Ruth didn’t know what God wanted from her.
A cool scent drifted from the tufts of asphodels.
The breaths of evening floated over Galgala’s hills.

The darkness was nuptial, solemn, and august.
Surely there were angels flying in the glimmering,
For you could see, passing in the night now and then,
Something that was bluish and appeared to be a wing.

Boaz’s breathing was as soft as a child’s
And blended with the water rustling in the copse.
It was in the month when nature is mild.
The hills were adorned with lilies on their tops.

Ruth dreamed and Boaz slept. The dark grass seemed to sigh.
The flock’s bells were tinkling vaguely in the breeze.
An immense goodness fell from the height of the sky;
It was at the hour when the lions drink in peace.

Everything was resting in Jerimadeth and Ur;
The stars glazed the deep sky as far as you could see.
A bright, thin crescent shone among these shadowy
Flowers of evening, and Ruth wondered to herself,

Motionless, half opening her eyes and looking far
Into the night, what reaper of eternity —what kind
Of god—had, leaving us, carelessly tossed behind
This golden sickle in the dark field of the stars.