“Pater noster



Our Father who art in heaven

Stay there

And we'll stay here on earth

Which is sometimes so pretty

With its mysteries of New York

And its mysteries of Paris

At least as good as that of the Trinity

With its little canal at Ourcq

Its great wall of China

Its river at Morlaix

Its candy canes

With its Pacific Ocean

And its two basins in the Tuileries

With its good children and bad people

With all the wonders of the world

Which are here

Simply on the earth

Offered to everyone

Strewn about

Wondering at the wonder of themselves

And daring not avow it

As a naked pretty girl dares not show herself

With the world's outrageous misfortunes

Which are legion

With legionaries

With torturers

With the masters of this world

The masters with their priests their traitors and their troops

With the seasons

With the years

With the pretty girls and with the old bastards

With the straw of misery rotting in the steel of cannons.”

― Jacques Prévert