Pater Noster

Our father that art in heaven
Stay there
And we will stay on the earth
Which is sometimes so lovely
With her mysteries of New York
And her mysteries of Paris
Which well equal those of the Trinity

With her little canal of Ourcq
Her great wall of China
Her river of Morlaix
Her treasures of Cambrai
With her Pacific Ocean
And her two lakes at the Tuilleries

With her good children and her bad subjects
With all the world's marvels
There
Simply on the earth
Offered to everyone
Scattered
Marveling themselves to be such marvels
And who dare not avow it
Like a pretty girl who dares not show herself

With the world's horrifying miseries
Who are legion
With their legionnaires
With their tortureres
With the masters of this world
The masters with their priests and their traitors

With the seasons
With the years
With the pretty girls and the old bastards
With the straw of misery rotting in the steel of cannons.

~ Jacques Prevert