Eidolon

Adamic man stands alone at the dawn of the world. Born out of the crucible by the cross, he anticipates Eve’s arrival. He knows all things are white in God’s hands until they are coloured, and only he can colour them with the music of his voice, only he can give God the gift of reality. He becomes the ancient wanderer, full of hope yet knowing all is written, for he and Eve have been expelled from the garden.

His reflections are the hermetic musings of a man in search of himself, as if he were a pilgrim conquistador clanking across the sea of time in search of a lost Atlantis. At the mercy of mercurial seas, he perceives signs in the mirror. Star-struck, he and Eve bite and lick each other like puppies, unaware of predators. Though they will die walled inside their skulls, they are recovered alive in the alchemical vision of the unity of opposites . . . matter and spirit, dissolution and creation, the cosmos and contemporary life — alive as a single loop on the pyre, the burning stone that never dies.

Robert Marteau, born in France close by the medieval pilgrimage route to Compostela, went to Quebec where he rediscovered his origins and his patrimony along the shores of the St. Lawrence River. It was there that he wrote these poems.

Translated by Barry Callaghan. Bilingual French/English

Poetry 1990 • 5.5 x 8.75 inches • PB 142 pages • 9780920428887