Homage to Life ~ A Poem by Jules Supervielle

What does it mean to truly live? Jules Supervielle’s quiet masterpiece whispers answers to those who pause long enough to hear them.

Homage to Life

Jules Supervielle

It’s good to have chosen
A living home
And housed time
In a ceaseless heart
And seen my hands
Alight on the world,
As on an apple
In a little garden,
To have loved the earth,
The moon and the sun
Like old friends
Who have no equals,
And to have committed
The world to memory
Like a bright horseman
To his black steed,
To have given a face
To these words — woman, children,
And to have been a shore
For the wandering continents
And to have come upon the soul
With tiny strokes of the oars,
For it is scared away
By a brusque approach.
It is beautiful to have known
The shade under the leaves,
And to have felt age
Creep over the naked body,
And have accompanied pain
Of black blood in our veins,
And gilded its silence
With the star, Patience,
And to have all these words
Moving around in the head,
To choose the least beautiful of them
And let them have a ball,
To have felt life,
Hurried and ill loved,
And locked it up
In this poetry.

Source

Reflection:

Jules Supervielle’s Homage to Life reads like a soft-spoken farewell kissed with wonder. It’s the gratitude of someone who lived not only through time but with it—touching the world gently, storing its beauty with reverence. From the “ceaseless heart” to the tender encounter with the soul, the poem is a reminder that to live fully is to observe quietly, to love deeply, and to remember faithfully. Even pain, age, and silence are given their due—gilded not with denial, but with Patience, the poem’s shining star. In a rush-hungry world, this is a quiet trumpet call to presence, to poetry, and to the poetry of presence.

---

❓ Dive-Deeper Questions:

1. Which image in the poem—“apple in a garden,” “wandering continents,” “tiny strokes of the oars”—spoke to you most, and why?
2. How does the poem invite us to approach life differently, especially in how we engage with time and memory?
3. What does the poem suggest about how to treat the soul—and by extension, each other?