rayons de lune

Aux rayons de mémoire et aux temples de l'armoire

(On the shelves of memory and in the temples of the wardrobe)
-Colette Wartz, Paroles pour l'autre, p. 26.

But the real wardrobe is not an everyday piece of furniture. It is not opened every day, and so, like a heart that confides in no one, the key is not on the door.


* * * * *


André Breton, with a single word, shows us the marvels of unreality by adding a blessed impossibility to the riddle of the wardrobe. In Revolver aux cheveux blancs (p. 110) he writes with typical surrealist imperturbability:

L'armoire est pleine de linge
Il y a même des rayons de lune que je peux déplier.

(The wardrobe is filled with linen
There are even moonbeams which I cannot unfold.)  

-Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, 1994, p. 79-80.