POEME ROMÂNESTI ÎN LIMBI STRĂINE
Nichita STĂNESCU
Indolent Fury
I cannot suffer, my sensitive soul,
the woman who springs from my rib’s dart
and, passionately, throws her temple's bowl
against rocks of melancholy, like in my poor heart.
No, I cannot suffer, to feel your nimble pace
break loose from my ankle, painlessly.
My soul lies on a wolf-fanged trace.
The thin streak of silence becomes a place hastily
and from under my wide palm, your shoulder’s bliss
tears itself away deafening like a train whistle
towards a tunnel, towards the void, towards the abyss,
towards an unforged face, dwelling in the future’s epistle.
No, I cannot suffer, to allow between us in long rows
the cold shadows of the passions stirred by you,
dear happenings like heavy extinct buffaloes,
nor is remoteness allowed. Not between me and you.
In the Sweet Classical Style
From a boulder there descends
your young lady’s lacing pace.
From pale green leaf fairylands,
your young lady’s lacing pace.
From the dark nightfall’s embrace
your young lady’s lacing pace.
From a sorrowful bird’s space
your young lady’s lacing pace,
A minute's race, a minute’s race
I beheld it in the wave’s grace.
It paraded the foxy bow in my face.
My heart slowly dips in haze.
Let your walking linger a trace
on my tympanum like a mace,
on the knavish and demigod blaze
since I’m lost in the wretched maze.
Here I lie in my tall array and say,
Young lady, something almost next to nay
under the dwarfish sun at bay
like a gilded and mosaic tray.
The pace steps away yet I will stay.
English version by Gabriela PACHIA