Anghel GÂDEA
NEAR THE FRIENDS
to Gheorghe Grigurcu
The puppies alone have remained my friends
Along with some other friends of theirs,
Faithful beings that watch under my window
Without even knowing how many enemies surround me…
They follow me to the gate when I leave,
And warm my toes when I shoot the bolts
With their velvet red tongues,
Then wait for me until I return.
They stand motionless, eyes fastened upon the street…
Sometimes overwhelmed with worries and needs,
I forget to caress them, to ask them how they are,
What their problems are,
Why they fight with the stray dogs through the fence
That walk along the street and defile our territory…
Their longing for me gathers up in their souls
And makes them rush into my arms,
Lay their little pads on the keys of the typewriter,
Bark and look into my eyes to tell me
That I have to write about their needs, too,
Because they, also, live and bear
The same stupid loneliness…
My loneliness
Keeps me captive in this poem
Where you, also, are captive
Without even knowing it…
I, at least, let you free sometimes
So you may go to the hairdresser’s
To have your hair dyed,
Or shopping,
To buy things you don’t need,
And then home again
Much uglier than you were
When you left my poem , where I adorn you,
Not with dreams, as one poet said,
But with disillusionments, with the sadness
That I can no longer make you beautiful,
As you once were, or merry,
My lady, my autumn…
ALIEN PHOTOS
to Mrs. Maria-Ana-Tupan
In my mother’s room the photos ever more sad
And the empty trunk by the bed covered with newspapers
Upon which in autumn we lay the fruits picked from the trees,
Then their photo, she and dad, when they were young…
They, both, seem to look at me as at a polite stranger
Who says to them ’Hello!’
And inquires after their health…
When I, too, go in their pursuit,
Searching for them in the world beyond,
The pictures on the walls will be no longer there,
They will have become strangers
In their own house…
I alone go and say to them every morning
’Hello, Mum! Hello, Dad!’
How are you? Still in the pictures hung up upon the walls?
I am whispering it to you for fear the hens can hear
That I am more and more lonely without you,
Without your voices, without your smiles…
Your nephews still light candles together with me,
On Christmas and on Easter, a candle for each of you,
Memories that persist near the cross
There, on the hill, in the cemetery, as long as we climb down
And come into the yard, where I steal into your room
To remind you that you are alive in my mind,
That the hyacinths, the violets, the lilacs
are in bloom…
Traduceri de Olimpia IACOB
