Mihaela ALBU
New York City
The city is a sea of lights at night
What a trite metaphor!
Start over.
OK. The sky scrapers are jealous of the sun
During the day,
And I walk around with a camera (an old one),
Trying to capture everything,
On film.
But of course, the camera sees
Only as much as you can see.
At night, I look for the stars.
They are not easy to find. Out of pride,
And perhaps a little prejudice,
New Yorkers decided
They would not need the stars.
And yet, last night
I saw some light,
Finding its way,
Among airplanes and towers,
Among the neon signs from bars--
It was wink from the stars.
Morning Walk on Wall Street
It’s so simple and natural
To see the horizon turn red
And walk in the morning
Down Wall Street,
And perhaps dream
That among sky scrapers and such,
And after so many rainy days,
A ray of sunshine will come
Just to greet you!
How simple,
How natural
to meet a delivery man
Carrying a huge basket with flowers,
(you have to suppose that someone
was inspired by the Japanese ikebanas)
and to give him the ray of sunshine
To deliver together with the flowers
To some poor soul in a high-rise
Who might have lost,
In a dispirited moment,
His hope.
How simple,
How natural
To put together flowers and sunshine,
To give someone hope.
And you go on walking,
As usual, in a hurry, on Wall Street,
Conceiving of another delivery man
Who, on another errand and with another plan,
Will ring the bell on your floor
To leave a basket at your door,
(inspired, of course, by Japanese ikebanas)
and you may, in that spirited moment,
regain your hope.
September Afternoon
Oh, how hard it is to explain the joy
Of simply walking
In “the city that never sleeps”!
Sleep—what a contrived notion…!
With greedy eyes, you take in what you can,
Not that you ever can take in everything,
Not that you can remember one street,
To compare it with the next,
One bridge, to compare it with the next,
At the next turn.
You look at people’s faces;
On the bus, in the subway…
You have developed a distaste
For big cars with dark windows,
Because you don’t know if or who
Is looking at you.
But you always think of something else,
Without asking yourself whether
Those travelers in the offending car
Have ever met a smiling face before.
You like it this way:
In the street, in the subway,
or on the slow moving buses,
People start talking to you,
As if you were in a village.
Some malicious person said
That in fact, New York City
Is just a big village.
To you, that was not slander,
But a beautiful metaphor
Of this big world made of small worlds.
In this chaos or Babylon
The simplest things can happen:
Can you ever forget the squirrel,
On a doorstep in Queens,
That looked exactly like the squirrel
That was featured in your primer
Biting carefully on a nut?
And this is why I wonder
How I could describe the joy
Of a simple walk through the city,
Where people say ‘hi’ and smile,
And send flowers to friends,
And where squirrels come
To have lunch on your doorstep.
Traduceri de Anca ROSU
