Jean-Louis Bouzou – Text Bubbles

I sometimes think of this man so desperately in love with a woman that he constantly wore her scent of this man who to forget her fled to the far end of France of this man who turned to drink of this man who considered himself the most unhappy man in the world of this man who no longer wanted to live of this man who played a role that others played, play and will play of this man that I no longer am…

Rain had come then, more gently, the mist no mountains remain only phantom crests jagged with tree silhouettes. Like a refugee on the doorstep sipping hot tea I watch the embers slowly die the forest's scent grows ever more heady. The sky roars a first flash then lightning strikes so close that it makes me jump… I'm drenched in tea.

Upon a rocky outcrop overlooking the valley perched, eyes closed, arms outstretched like a cross I am the figurehead of a ship with countless masts.

I walk through a church where the slabs are raw stones where the pillars are oaks, larches and chestnut trees where the altars are mossy walls of dry stone where the ceiling is a checkerboard of foliage and sky where the carpets are of dead leaves where I am not a sinner – but a joyful being.

Reading a bundle of old letters – Valentine's Day.

Leaving the languid roundness of these days full of love and the veiled words of the golden nights... returning, for a short while, to where it all began, so many years ago... and reclaiming, without drama or tragic tears, one of the last pieces of soul of the music-loving shaman... Where will I find it? Around the corner of a traboule? On the Palais footbridge? In the cloister of the Saint-Pierre Museum, on a bench, chatting with Rodin's Thinker or the monk-like birds that beautify the ugly city? The Universe is a great mystery… and I serve it.

Recently, I have felt your night... It's time to go get her quickly and set her free! I can hear her singing and dancing barefoot under the deafening sun of her childish laughter. Shatter the walls where you have locked her up all these years, thinking you were protecting her! Nowadays, the little girl you once were is much stronger than you. Her heart is the hotline to your soul. Her intense joy of living and her light will save you… You will be reborn.

So often on the moon, yet I could devour a whole quarter of the sun; there are so many honeycombs in this love that shapes my heart.

In the meantime, before writing, we must first live—to patiently chew the nourishing dough of the days until it transforms into that beautiful ink we spill onto the pages of our notebooks.

Returning to my sacred mountain, I find myself in its oceans of undergrowth, losing my superego forever—like an ancient Native American, a shepherd cherished and celebrated by subtle, living beings whose sole purpose is to embrace the eternity of love and beauty nestled in every fleeting moment of life.

In the meantime, this love is the shaper of my days, the brush with which my heart colors my life and that of those around me… It's a burning bush, a perpetual movement, an enduring smile, a wellspring of abundance…

In the meantime, sometimes my faith shivers under the waves of this foul world, and my heart cries for its lost sweetness… In these deaf and dark days, without adornments, the cards repeat to me, 'You are my star and my strength, when the mirror hours reflect this love.

Nowadays I live in the wind and smiles irrigate my heart. I am the woods and the song of water streaming over the stones. I no longer have any bark left.

When people ask me about my feelings, I struggle to contain the silent, powerful, and burning secret that has inhabited me for so many years... Inside me, the light accumulates and painfully pushes against every square inch of my skin, yearning to find its way out. As for you, finally free from the prison of lies that you and yours had built, you repair yourself and prepare... Soon, on the summer swing, in the aura of our laughter, I will push you towards the sun to feel in your shouts all the magic of a child with lungs swollen with joy and freedom...