As an illustrative example of what might be missing, and the difficulties that Baldridge had to confront, the first stanza of the recurring title Gisants, in its second appearance in the section L’effacement, begins;

Treuil de la paume qui te lève
Pelvienne ce trente mai
Ton visage passe tout près
Méat de syllabes votives
Tu sèmes trois cierges avant
Que nous passions en revue la Seine

Baldridge translates this as:

Winch of the palm that lifts you
Pelvic this thirtieth of May
Your face closely passes by
Meatus of votive syllables
You scatter three tapers before
We pass in review the Seine

The unusual construction of the first line, which presents an image of a hand as a semi-mechanical device, is continued by the location of the seat of power as a central part of the body. The abrupt shift to observation after action in the view of the face of the person accompanying the speaker, however, is distorted by the fourth line with the word “Meatus,” a word removed even from esoteric English usage, so that the idea of a corporeal rendition of devotion is compromised by the strangeness of the term. Baldridge has chosen “Meatus” as a correspondence with the Latin meatus, from meare — to pass — which leads towards the “nous passions” (“we pass”) of the sixth line while recollecting the “pass” of the third line. The logic of the choice is evident, and its ingenuity characteristic of Baldridge’s technique. Nonetheless, as a poetic equivalence, it is a questionable imposition. To retain Deguy’s focus on the physical, while advancing the relationship between the observer and observed — “treuil,” literally a winch, but since the palm’s motion is like a turning — might lead to this version:

Turn of the palm that lifts you
Pelvic this thirtieth of May
Brings your face very near
Echoing worshipful words
You scatter three candles before
We pass on, re-viewing the Seine

with the word “candles” rather than “tapers” for the alliterative resonance with “scatter” which has some of the sonic qualities of “sèmes trois cierges.” An imaginative reconception, somewhat in the spirit of Ezra Pound’s translations (or recreations) of works like “The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter,” could be supported (or is almost required?) by the sense of meatus as a passage within the body, such as “the opening of the ear” as defined by The American Heritage Dictionary, a site where there is a kind of resonating (or echoing) within the ear canal. And the line “Que nous passions en revue la Seine” presents particular problems since “passions” is an unusual construction of “to pass,” insinuating a degree of passion while in this context invoking a memory of (as in “re-viewing” in the sense of recalling or reseeing) previous passages along the river.