POEME ROMÂNESTI ÎN LIMBI STRĂINE

Magdalena Dorina POPA

 

THIRST

 

You squeeze the water

from my eyes

and from the throat of a turtle dove

drops of blood fall

like a prediction.

 

I COME OUT IN THE WORDS

 

I tread on the words

as on a knife blade

willing to cut the bread

that keeps postponing death

from day to day.

 

I choose the rain all by myself,

that is why the grass of my fingers

is so tender,

mown every night

by a blingfolded god.

 

I come out in the words

just like an apostle

in the apple grown up in the sins,

waiting for the light

to break, even from the stones.

DROP OF HEAVEN

 

Ever since I found you,

every word of mine

has been a celebration

about which the birds

will speak in their own language

until there flows from you

drops of heaven

with a taste of ripe grapes.

When it rains beautifully,

when a cross sings within me

by no one known,

and the lips of waiting

are almost ablaze,

tearing the sweet bark

of the moon that prattles

like a child with wings of milk.

 

I have no idea about how it comes about

that only your eyes

can pass through the sole of sky

to reach me,

just when the grass sleeps

with my heart trickling in the arms.

 

 

SLABS OF SKY

 

Much more light

grows up inside me

since a butterfly

has stuck on my heart

like a prayer on the goblet.

 

I wish I could cry out hard as I can

that sorrows rain over me

as they did over Jove,

but I know not if the grass I carry on my back

would still grow.

It’s for the first time

that a window laughs at me

under the stones of the night,

when my hands

flow

within a bell

with its hand bitten by the stars.

 

WING UNDER THE WATERS

 

The night quivers over a quince-tree:

I have no idea about how often so far

time draws a wing under the waters,

a token that I will never pass

through this place.

 

Now and here,

I have the image of an owl

kissing in a strange way

the bell against which

props the hermitage of an unmuttered song.

 

O God, close behind me

there comes the snow

that only once is given to you,

so please, blindfold me

that I may not see so many branches

that taste of me.

 

BIRDS IN SANDGLASSES

 

Today I have held in my hands

the shadow of that Sunday

that became dumb in Jesus’ body,

when the nails

had drilled the sky.

 

Instead of sand,

birds struggle in the sandglass

and time washes its face

With the holy water in the lap of an old apple tree.

 

I await you, God,

to lay many more stones

under my knees,

because only through sorrow

the lamp of love remains lighted.

 

MORE THAN LOVE

 

Since you enclosed me with your look,

the aim of the sandglass

is to amass within it

gods’sweat.

 

I did not believe

that most beautiful dream

would dig beneath my skin,

so as to be able to splash

like a protruding eye.

 

Do not move away:

I just cross myself

and let love

throw stones at me,

until spring

puts on my blood

as if it were a wedding dress.

 

BREATH FROM BREATH

 

I will go on standing in the path of the water,

until I myself

am part of it

and then turn into a scarf

for your feet.

 

I have known that you would wall me up

in that dead clay,

from the very wish

to shelter

the will

where my heart

will give birth to your heart.

 

I will go on standing in the path of the water,

until the nights

know to write

the name of God

on every lamb’s hoof

Traduceri de Olimpia IACOB si Jim KACIAN