Pleaux - Poet of Pleaux

Medieval village in High-Auvergne

Poet of Pleaux

Painter, journalist, historian and poet, Raymond Mil, his true name Raymond Mialaret, remains the prominent figure of the small city. Faithful to his earth and to his traditions, he has saved from oblivion our local history but also has sung emotionally its familiar landscapes.
He was born in Pleaux the 19th April 1890. At eleven years he join the Small Seminary "origin of erudition, dream and religious certainty" where raised probably her vocation of poet. After his law studies he sets up as a clerk of the Justice in Pleaux, Raymond Mialaret is devoted then to the paint, to the music and, for our great pleasure, to poetry. A poetry where he exalts the Nature, native local but also the simple joy pleasure, the heat of the cantou . ..
Raymond Mialaret has left us 11th February 1983. In addition to his monograph Pleaux, situation, passé, présent , he left us three poetry collections, Le Lün d’argent (1936), Brande et Serpolet (1965) and Sonnailles (1977). These last books are today very difficult to find, it seems me therefore indispensable to get out them of the oblivion by publishing here three poems.

Refuge
Favorite places, I come to you slower,
Pastures, fine birch on high ferns,
Blue bottom brooks and green coast brooms ,
Moss of the clearing and the thatch crumbling ;
Such these of the low - country that, lips following
A battered chestnut confessed it their faults.
Trees, I confide to you as to hosts
Very noble, and my soul forgets by speaking you .
The world is ugly, you alone is splendid, Nature ;
I search in you what consoles and what last,
Ahead all what’s illusion and what disappears ;
I grant a brief look to the bitter existence,
What worth the love and who deserves my regret ?
. ..And nevertheless ... all mine, this saint : my mother!
Raymond Mil (Brande et Serpolet)

Hello to Pleaux
Hello, humble decrepit city,
You that for your happiness ignores the universe,
That nothing immortalizes and that null has not described
With your green meadow dress.
Hello, covered home of heavy grey tiles
That fraternally gather you around
Some chestnut and the antique church
So proud of its tower !
Hello, roman steeple, that dominate the space
From highs puys of the Cantal to Limousins plateau
And the crimson Quinsac to blue backgrounds where smooth
All neighbor steeples.
And your bells : Saint - Jean, Saint - Roch, the Bandarelle,
Under the bronze machicolation of your roof
No more old memory flit around there
That swallows near you.
They toll our knell, our marriages , our baptisms,
Our tocsins, and gloomy evenings of the Advent ,
" The Good King Dagobert " on livid and cold fields
Rang in the wind.
Fountains of the Bournat, Empeyssines, Font - Vieille,
Noise of urns whose the beautiful copper luminous.
Under the arc shining of the water that the evening renders vermilion
Have the sun in them.
Seminary, Luguet, residence of the Rose,
Treize - Vents, Empradel, decrepit Souqueiroux
Where the lün make shine its weak pink star
Under the vast reddish-brown roofs ;
Creux-des-Monts where wolves came to prowl a short time ago,
Chestnuts of the " Bocage ", odors of thyme,
Wash and harvests, your heath, your fern,
Whole, near roof, pleases us;
In crimson herds whose ring the cattle bells,
Under the heart of stone of the martyr of Bouval,
In shouts of kids that on their fire of straw
Make burn Carnival ;
In shouts of threshers under open shed of barns,
Songs of the " woke ", and in the thousand voices
The Flying-Hunt and the strange " truces "
We like you thousand time!
Forest, from Estourocs to ruins of Scorailles,
Fertile fields of Beth to mooring of Armonts,
In your wheat, your brooms, your slope, your loose stones
It is you that we like,
We like you in the your past boom that glides
From ivy of Branzac to the rock of Saint - Till,
In the cricket that sings and the bee that gleans
Its subtle aromas...
What does it matter if someone joking you or despises you,
Cause your son seeing, far on the tray,
After a long exile, your grey silhouette,
Pour tears of joy and launch in the breeze
This fervent shout : Hello, hello our old Pleaux!
Raymond Mil (Le Lün d'argent)

Old Bournat

An old manor house (Nébouzac)

Al Cantou
Sanctuary of the family, chimney,
When one has the quiet past for confidant,
Near you each object takes an obsessive charm :
Holy box, half charring salt box,
Lantern, black sheet with chiselled blazon,
Sphinx of the firedog like cat looking them,
" Andrillère " hanging down under your bowed hood
Like under a bell in sleep beating it.
Under your protection some playful sprite
Mixes sometimes the snow to the ash of the hearth
And the soul of the dreamer to the voice of the cricket,
Your prestige grows especially when illuminates
The copper of the calel under your vermilion fire,
- Star of the shepherd of a twilight sky. -
Raymond Mil (Le Lün d'argent)

Abel Beaufrère has published a booklet retracing the life of Raymond Mialaret at Publishing Gerbert - Aurillac.