POEME ROMÂNESTI ÎN LIMBI STRĂINE

Nichita STĂNESCU

 

Orpheus in the Old Fortress

 

The poet, with a falcon on his shoulder, is entering the fortress.

He feels very troubled

and just like the Canopus star,

the one in the austral hemisphere

the one seen only by those who wear heart-glasses.

 

No one can see the poet.

Some can’t see him because they don’t possess eyesight.

Others can’t see him because they don’t have a heart.

Well, the rest can’t see him because they don’t exist.

 

But they are saying all together,

“The poet isn’t for drinking, so we don’t understand him !”

“The poet doesn’t smell like the flower.

How can we understand him,

how can we take for a flower

that which doesn’t smell like a flower ?!”

 

The poet is walking down the main road.

“Go to hell !” whispers the falcon on his shoulder,

“Go to hell, you fool !” whispers the falcon on his shoulder.

The poet pretends not to hear anything.

 

I’ve seen with my own eyes a poet entering the fortress.

He was holding in his right hand, in his right fist,

a strangled hawk.

 

 

Song

 

It simply happened to my being :

and the happiness within myself

is stronger than me, than my bones,

that grit in your embrace

forever painful, forever marvellous.

 

Let’s chat, let’s talk, let’s utter words,

Long, vitreous like chisels which split

the cold river from the hot delta,

the day from the night, basalt from basalt.

 

Happiness, take me high and strike

my temple against the stars, until

my endlessly protracted world

turns into a column or something

much taller and much sooner.

 

It’s a blessing that you exist, it’s a miracle that I exist !

Two different tunes, jostling, blending,

two unfamiliar colours,

one from the lowest lowness, facing the ground,

the other from the highest highness, almost torn

in the matchless feverish struggle

of the miracle that you exist, of the happening that I exist.

 

 

Love and the Poet

You’ve grown tall and slender,
and some strange feeling hurts you,
and you’re proud, parading it on your shoulder,
like a falcon at hunting are you.

And your long stares pervade
the thick castle wall and secret locks,
forever stopping at the stone face
with joining eyebrows and swishing frocks.

Then noble contests, frightful battles
and imaginary abductions arise,
time is subdued, like a man of good mettle
you meet the seconds with half-closed eyes.

And the years pass, you wouldn’t drop
the slender falcon from your shoulder,
still the seconds of its gallop
beat ever faster in the great smolder.

 

Name Calling

 

I showed her a green stone

and asked her not to leave.

I showed her a seven-saddled horse

and said to her, „Don’t go away !”

I showed her a juicy pair and said to her,

“Eat it and don’t go away, don’t go away !”

Then I showed her my father's son.

I said to her, „Mind what a handsome father I’ve got !

Please, stay and don’t go away !”

I showed her a four-chamoied clover ;

a two-bodied heart ;

a bird hovering inwards the egg

and said to her, „Don’t go away from me !”

Yet she

went away because she had started to go away.

I called out,

„If you go away, at least tell me your name,

at least tell me your name !”

She

merely turned her face,

a mere profile over her shoulder,

and uttered something of which I heard

in case I truly heard...

it seemed to me, the loner,

that she uttered,

“Autumn’s here, it’s time for lovers

to find out their sweethearts’ names –

as the leaves in the sunshine

guess they’ve got a shadow... !”

I think ‘shadow’ was the word

I caught,

before the Shadow went away.

My sweetheart.

The leaves’ sweetheart...

 

(English version: Gabriela PACHIA)