Distant Voices: Emanuel Hocquard

XI

From no point of the canale is it possible to see
the burnt stump. Not because of the hedge-row.
Because a word is missing. Pond two communicates with pond three by a
drain of cemented tiles.
Pond three with the canale by the view from
the stone island.
But how make the burnt stump communicate
with the memory of the canale?
How line up in a logical sequence the
construction work of these past summers?
I have not yet told you about the hut, but I’m
correcting this omission.
I am going to tell you about the word hut.

XII

Hut is a childhood word. To build a hut in the
woods, in the trees, etc.
Hut is also a Wittgenstein memory. He had
built himself a hut in Norway, to which he
withdrew at various times to think and write,
when not teaching logic in Cambridge.
Last summer, I built myself a hut in Bouliac, in
Alexandre’s old studio.
I often go there to think and to write.
When I run out of bread I walk to Fargues to
buy some, with Alexandre for company.
In front of the hut window, we have built a
feeder in the form of an antefix for the birds in
winter.

XIII

Chronicle of recent summer work.
1993. Exavation of pond two. The first frog and
extensive bookshelves.
1994. Voyage to Reykjavik (montage of film).
Excavation of pond three. The Chinese carp, the
weeping willow and the vehement frog.
1995. Configuration of the canale. The mole.
The book of the mole. The gray heron. The
book of the canale, outline.
1996. Construction of the hut and the primitive
totem for the tits and robins.
1997. The Voyage to Reykjavik (the book). The
four chickens. The consumption of the stump.
Construction of the antefix for the birds.

XIV

This chronicle contains all the words that
stake out the route from the hut to the burnt
stump except one.
The one that is missing. What properties do
the stump and the canale have in common?
Memories: of the chalk pond traced in the
grass and of the ancient cedar uprooted by the
Storm.
Italy: canale is an Italian word designating a
long rectangular pond, and the burning of the
stump is a technique brought from Rome.
Two properties in common is not enough.
At least one more is missing.
The missing word.

XV

The rule says to see is a verb of action.
I change the rule and say to see is a verb of state-
of-being (or change of state-of-being).
Which is obvious when one thinks about it.
I see a leaf. I pick up a leaf.
The two sentences are not equivalent.
I draw a leaf is something else again.
Giacometti sees a dog. The dog that he sees on
this particular day.
He says: “I am this dog.”
He makes a sculpture of this dog. Selfportrait.
I see Viviane.
Viviane is Viviane.
I write the sonnets of Viviane.