Living in a glass house on “Terre à ciel” by Valérie Canat de Chizy

"Nicolas Rouzet questions in this collection a certain way of being in the world. How can we be fully there when we are, in a certain way, imprisoned? The glass house encloses and yet is open to the outside, lets in light. Therein lies the paradox: Shadow and light coexist, one emerging from the other.

The man is a prisoner, bound hand and foot , from the happiness he invented for himself. The one towards which he tends, but to which he cannot access, because the impossible is a stone wall / where reason collides .

Comes a single bird song
when the whole forest huddles there.
Just one note then
contains more thought than trees,
more thought than men,
a simple trill
delivers the key to all kingdoms.

We are surrounded by ramparts but, sometimes, simple inner listening opens up a whole landscape. In the simple presence of oneself, in the world, lies a happy space.

Don't wonder
if you live leaning on the slope of misfortune
that you fear
or on that of a happiness too wisely
invented,
just let the water tremble a little beneath
the bridges.

The poet would like to be this bird that flies out of its cage. We then understand that the glass prison symbolizes the four walls of reason . Sometimes there is nothing else to do but become silent, to let rest one's will to go somewhere to blend into space, to

walk the paths,
all the paths,
become your own path,
disappear there.

Nicolas Rouzet's poems alternate with the drawings of his daughter Pauline, in a subtle form of complicity. "

Valérie Canat de Chizy

Article published on “Terre à ciel” in February 2022:
https://www.terreaciel.net/Lus-et-approves-fevrier-2022-par-Valerie-Canat-de-Chizy?fbclid=IwAR2DuLR97ITG3uuniq4Rg89ZQrHJ-PUNp2hpwXqNWA2BYsnzir8imY0OhHE#.YiIHqRPMJn5

Buy the book online: Living in a glass house – Éditions Exopotamie