POEME ROMÂNESTI ÎN LIMBI STRĂINE
Gheorghe Mihai BÂRLEA
Nănesti
I long for
a slumber covered with dew
and the scents of the grass
and the garden come into leaf
and the house of wood
and the windows half-opened towards the heaven
and the slow river giving light
and the primary school-yard
but most of all I long for the village
Something else
what we miss sometimes
is neither love
nor wisdom
nor money nor special drink
nor friends
nor the longing that devours
nor pain¾even if all of them sit down to your table
but simply something else
out of which all springs
wastes
everybody believes in you
and everybody revolts
he likes
to insinuate himself into his neighbour’s heart
careful to the noise of the birds
the ravens multiply inconceivably
the reptiles’s legs decrease in height
ready to enter the springs of your blood
the drivers mount the huge hunch of
the camel
until the sun consumes the shirt of the noon
he praises you
and forgets you.
When the day drops
this day
will never be
for you again ¾
this want, what will you put in its place ?
you will have to retire by all means ¾
ashamed ¾ in its unlit shadow
your hands are stained by its fall
posthumity
this cell
still smells
of blood on the walls
after they have cleared of rats
all the smell of bones
The Hunter in Love
…in the shade of the Gutâi Mountain
I leave the words behind
as the deer fly with strides
in the snow
the hunter
a bad marksman
stands still
before the pipe of the weapon
it seldom happens to him
to fall in love with his game
today his cartridges
have frozen with emotion
he feels that there is something else happening
quite differently and otherwise…
***
there is so much snow
that the mountain comes into nothingness
while climbing up towards the sky¾
there is no song of bird
no word ¾
but the silver of the day that shines
as pure is the love of the bride and the bridegroom
when from the dream they call themselves
to life
***
A tree flies after me
with no roots
from grey to white
its bark is maiden-like
or at least it looks so while flying
feathers with eyes are the birds
huddled up on the scanty branches
and got lost under the sky
until the sun that sets down rises
***
the wood has moved under the sun
the mountain is a huge ember
from the eyelash of the sky drips
dust of star on to the canopy of leaves
Translations by Olimpia IACOB