NICHITA STẶNESCU(1933-1983)
A Poem
Tell me, if I caught you one day
and kissed the sole of your
foot,
wouldn't you limp a little
then,
afraid to crush my kiss?...
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The Sense of Love (1960)
Burned forest
Black snow was falling. The tree line
shone when I turned to see -
I had wondered long and silent,
alone, trailing memory behind me.
And it seemed the stars, fixed as they were,
ground their teeth, a stiffened nexus,
an infernal machine, tolling
the halted hours of conciousness.
Then, a thick silence descends,
and my every gesture
leaves a comet tail in the heavens.
And I hear evey glance I cast
as it echoes against
some tree.
Child, what were you seeking there,
with your gangly arms and pointed shoulders
on which the wings were barely dry -
black snow drifting in the evening sky.
A horizon howling, far from view,
darting its tongues and anthracite,
dragged me forever down the mute row,
my body, half naked, sliding from sight.
In distances of smoke the town afire,
blazing beneath the planes, a frigid pyre.
We two, forest, what did we do?
Why did they burn you, forest, in a toga of ash -
and the moon no longer passes over you?
From the book "Bas-Relief with
Heroes"
english translation by Thomas Carlson and Vasile Poenaru.
Winter song
You are so beautiful in winter!
The field stretched on its back, near the horizon,
and the trees stopped running from the winter wind ...
My nostrils tremble
and no scent
and no breeze
only the distant, icy smell
of the suns.
How transparent your hands are in winter!
And no one passes -
only the white suns revolve in quiet worship.
and the thought spreads in circles
ringing the trees
in twos
in fours.
From the book
"Bas-Relief with Heroes"
english translation by Thomas Carlson and Vasile Poenaru.
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On horseback at dawn
Silence strikes the tree trunks, upon itself
retracing,
turns to distance, turns to sand.
I have turned my only face toward the sun,
my shoulders scatter leaves in this racing.
Cutting through the field - up on two shoes
my horse leaps, steaming, from the clay.
Ave, I am turning to you, I, Ave!
The sun has burst across the heavens, crying.
Stone drums are sounding, the sun grows,
the vault of heaven, alive with eagles, before him,
collapses into steps of air, and glows.
Silence turns to blue wind,
the spur of my shadow grows
in the ribs of the field.
The sun snaps the horizon in two.
The vault of heaven pulls down its dying prison cells.
Blue spears, with no returning,
I discard my visions, both of them -
they meet him, sweet and grave.
My horse rises on two shoes.
Ave, tide of light, ave!
The sun ascends from objects, crying,
shakes the borders, voiceless and grave.
My soul meets Him, Ave!
My horse rises on two shoes.
My pale mane burns on the wind.
From the book
"Bas-Relief with Heroes"
english translation by Thomas Carlson and Vasile Poenaru.
Field in Spring
Green rings around the eyes, this grass in vibrant
motion
arcs tenderly about you, at a distance-
you summon it, then fling it round, broken
by your laugh of youth and innocence.
Stretched
under you, this curling dome of grass
would sound its voices in the gravel-
but you are unaware - and now you pass
through foreign stars, a fool.
A Vision of Feelings (1964)
Sentimental story
Then we met more often.
I stood at one side of the hour,
you at the other,
like two handles of an amphora.
Only the words flew between us,
back and forth.
You could almost see their swirling,
and suddenly,
I would lower a knee,
and touch my elbow to the ground
to look at the grass, bent
by the falling of some word,
as though by the paw of a lion in flight.
The words spun between us,
back and forth,
and the more I loved you, the more
they continued, this whirl almost seen,
the structure of matter, the beginnings of things.
From the book
"Bas-Relief with Heroes"
english translation by Thomas Carlson and Vasile Poenaru.
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Season's end
I was so very aware
that the afternoon was dying in the domes,
and all around me sounds froze,
turned to winding pillars.
I was so very aware
that the undulant drift of scents
was collapsing into darkness,
and it seemed I had never tasted
the cold.
Suddenly
I awoke so far away
and strange,
wandering behind my face
as though I had hidden my feelings
in the sensless relief of the moon.
I was so very aware
that
I did not recognize you, and perhaps
you come, always,
every hour, every second,
moving through my vigil - then -
as through the spectre of a triumphal arch.
From the book "Bas-Relief with
Heroes"
english translation by Thomas Carlson and Vasile Poenaru.
The golden age of love
My hands are in love,
alas, my mouth loves -
and see, I am suddenly aware
that things are so close to me
I can hardly walk among them
without suffering.
It is a sweet feeling
of waking, of dreaming,
and I am here now, without sleep -
I clearly see the ivory gods,
I take them in my hands and
thrust them, laughing, in the moon
up to their sculpted hilts -
the wheel of an ancient ship, adorned
and spun by sailors.
Jupiter is yellow, Hera
the magnificent shades to silver.
I strike the wheel with my left hand and it moves.
It is a dance of sentiments, my love,
many a goddess of the air, between the two of us.
And I, the sail of my soul
billowed with longing,
look for you everywhere, and things come
ever closer,
crowding my chest, hurting me.
From the book "Bas-Relief with
Heroes"
english translation by Thomas Carlson and Vasile Poenaru.
A Poem
Tell me, if I caught you one day
and kissed the sole of your foot,
wouldn't you limp a little then,
afraid to crush my kiss?...
Bas-relief with heroes
The young soldiers have taken their seats in the
window,
exactly as found, shot in their foreheads -
to be seen, they were seated in the shop window,
true to their ultimate gestures,
profiles, arms, knees, their ultimate gestures,
as when they were shot, unawares, in their foreheads
or between their shoulder blades with that flame
finer than a child's finger pointing to the moon.
Behind them the barracks was empty,
smelling of leggings, crushed butts, a closed window.
The iron handles continue to rattle
on the small wooden suitcases filling the barracks,
as the moon's iron handles continue to rattle
now, before being opened to search for old letters,
old photos of time.
The young soldiers remain, polished with wax,
their faces and arms, so that they shine,
polished with wax so that thay shine, polished with wax
and seated exactly as they were at the moment
life broke and death swallowed the moment.
They stay so, fixed and shining forever,
and we regard them as we would the moon
rising in the middle of the square.
For us, who are now the same age as they,
though they have stayed long years in the window,
for us who have caught them and are passing them by,
and have beating hearts, and memory,
fresh memory, exceedingly fresh,
the young soldiers have taken their seats in the window
and mimic themselves, each to the other,
as though they were living.
From the book "Bas-Relief with
Heroes"
english translation by Thomas Carlson and Vasile Poenaru.
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Sad love song
Only my life will
die for me, in truth,
sometime.
Only the grass knows the taste of the earth.
In truth, only my blood misses
my heart when it leaves.
The air is tall, you are tall,
my sadness is tall.
There comes a time when horses die.
There comes a time when machines grow old.
There comes a time when cold rains fall,
and every woman wears your head-
and clothes.
There also comes a huge white bird
and lays the moon in the sky.
Adolescents on the sea
This sea is covered with adolescents
learning to walk on waves, upright,
sometimes resting their arms on the currents,
sometimes gripping a stiff beam of sunlight.
I lie on the broad beach, an angled shape, cut perfectly,
and I ponder them like travelers landing.
An infinite fleet of yawls. I wait to see
a false step, or at least a grounding
up to knee in the diaphanous swell
beneath their measured progress, sounding.
But they are slim and calm - as well,
they've learned to walk on waves - and standing.
Eleven Elegies (1966)
Second Elegy: The Getica
for Vasile Parvan A god was put in every tree stump.
If a stone split, a god
was quickly brought and put there.
It was enough that a bridge fell down,
a god was quickly put in its place,
or that a hole appeared in the highway,
a god was inserted there.
Oh, do not cut your hand or leg
by mistake - or by design.
They will promptly place a god in the wound,
as in every place, as everywhere,
they will place a god there
for us to worship, because he protects
whatever disunites itself.
Take care, warrior, do not lose
an eye,
for they will bring a god
and set him in your socket,
and he will stay there, petrified, and we
will move our souls to praise him...
And you yourself will stir your soul
in praising him, as you would strangers.
The Egg and the Sphere (1967)
Public clock with statues
The stones open an eye of stone,
the bones open an eye of bone.
Each dog has a snout in place of its eyes, and barks
from three snouts, generously.
It's a constant transforming of eyes in the air.
The eye of the cat turns into leaves.
The leaves murmur a sweet lament
in the sockets of the mother cats.
My eyes remain open and misted.
My eye blinks in the town council tower,
and suddenly I sense in my sockets,
with infant in arms, the statues of Mary.
From the book "Bas-Relief with
Heroes"
english translation by Thomas Carlson and Vasile Poenaru.
Unwords (1969)
Poetry
Poetry is the weeping eye
it is the weeping shoulder
the weeping eye of the shoulder
it is the weeping hand
the weeping eye of the hand
it is the weeping soul
the weeping eye of the heel.
Oh, you friends,
poetry is not a tear
it is the weeping itself
the weeping of an uninvented eye
the tear of the eye
of the one who must be beautiful
of the one who must be happy.
From the book "Bas-Relief with
Heroes"
english translation by Thomas Carlson and Vasile Poenaru.
Unwords
He offered me a leaf like a hand with fingers.
I offered him a hand like a leaf with teeth.
He offered me a branch like an arm.
I offered him my arm like a branch.
He tipped his trunk towards me
like a shoulder.
I tipped my shoulder to him
like a knotted trunk.
I could hear his sap quicken, beating
like blood.
He could hear my blood slacken like rising sap.
I passed through him.
He passed through me.
I remained a solitary tree.
He
a solitary man.
In the Sweet Classic Style (1970)
The ascension of words
Thus, like the skin
of a shorn ewe, the day rises.
It is difficult to skin the self from a stone.
It is difficult to skin memory from a Greek.
But why should we talk about these!
After all,
light too has a skin,
light too can be skinned...
So
light too is guilty of being.
A gust of fresh air
comes with the millenium.
We are beautiful;
why should we not be beautiful?
We eat one another
only from hunger,
from adoration,
from structure,
from love.
It doesn't matter.
We are what we are,
that is, beautiful.
I carry my ever still blood
in my heart.
I carry my ever salt tear
in my eye.
I carry the angel in the middle of heaven.
From the book "Bas-Relief with
Heroes"
english translation by Thomas Carlson and Vasile Poenaru.
Of love
She remains bored and very beautiful
her black hair is angry,
her bright hand
for ages now has forgotten me,-
for ages too has forgotten itself,
hanging as it has from the neck of a chair.
In the lights I drown myself,
set my jaws against the coursing of the year.
I reveal my teeth to her
but she understands this is no smile-
sweet, illuminated creature
she reveals myself to me while
she remains bored and very beautiful
and for her alone I live
in the appalling world
of this inferior heaven.
The Grandeur of Coldness (1972)
About the state of struggling
As though the superior knife adge
had cut my clouds from the mountain tops
does my immense and headless body hurl itself about,
leaving its fugitive head in the sky.
It cannot die though it no longer knows
what its own life meant, in ages past.
The eye above observes
the body below, its struggling -
From the open throat
a flock of green and chirping birds wells up -
The hand thrusts its claws
into the mirage -
The eye, suspended, watches
the desperate struggle.
The ship of flesh, caught in the storm,
will never founder -
Help me lovely cathedral
I saw in another town -
This moment of chaos
tolls with your bells.
I pray thee lovely cathedrals,
you, in another town,
allow the beauty of silence
to flow over me -
This body is the same
as the body of a river
suddenly beheaded by
its speaking delta.
May the flight of red birds
overtake you, lovely cathedral -
they rise in the sky, howling and croaking,
laughing from the severed neck -
Receive them, lovely cathedral
on the tongue of your bell, receive them -
Help me, lovely cathedral
i saw in another town -
Grant me silence, lovely cathedral,
and a different manner of death.
From the book "Bas-Relief with
Heroes"
english translation by Thomas Carlson and Vasile Poenaru.
Another kind of Mathematics
We know that one times one is one,
but an unicorn times a pear
have no idea what it is.
We know that five minus four is one
but a cloud minus a sailboat
have no idea what it is.
We know that eight
divided by eight is one,
but a mountain divided by a goat
have no idea what it is.
We know that one plus one is two,
but me and you, oh,
we have no idea what it is.
Oh, but a comforter
times a rabbit
is a red-headed one of course,
a cabbage divided by a flag
is a pig,
a horse minus a street-car
is an angel,
a cauliflower plus an egg
is an astragalus.
Only you and me
multiplied and divided
added and substracted
remain the same...
Vanish from my mind!
Come back in my heart!
english translation by George Mustea.
Epica Magna (1978)
The hieroglyph
What loneliness
to find no meaning
when there is a meaning
And what loneliness
to be blind in the full light of day, -
and deaf, what loneliness,
amidst the swelling of a song
But not to understand
when there is no meaning,
and to be blind in the middle of the night,
and deaf when silence is complete, -
oh, loneliness within loneliness!
Knots and Signs (1982)
Knot 19
Be aware that I can kill,
that I can crush with my heel the sweet head
of the peaceful rising star,
because of this I've turned to painting houses!
Be aware that I take no pity on myself,
that I mix my blood with birch trees!
I bring this to your attention with dispatch!
Watch what you do!
Sign 12
Little by little she became a word,
bundles of soul on the wind,
a dolphin in the clutches of my eyebrows,
a stone provoking rings in water,
a star inside my knww,
a sky inside my shoulder,
and I inside I.
From the book "Bas-Relief with
Heroes"
english translation by Thomas Carlson and Vasile Poenaru.
Distance
Distance is the cog wheel
on the haunted axle of my hearing,
grinding fine the deadened mind
of that unborn god
waiting to be caught
by the earth's blue speed,
and carrying in a handled urn
the plucked heart - ours,
it's beating, it's heard, it's beating, it's heard,
a sphere in wild growth -
the roads are wet with tears,
memory frail and elastic,
a sling for stones, a gondola
drowned in childlike Venices,
a tooth yanked from the cells with a string -
down the empty socket of Vesuvius. And you exist.
The Keynote
The bone is a joy only when it's the forehead
bone,
when it protects, does not disjoin,
as are the alkaline vertebrae
from the difficult depths of the flesh and the wedding.
I'm resigned to losing the habit
of my manner of being,
but not the desrtion
preserved in the verb to be.
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I will lose the habit of using my body,
giving birth to a Prince Charming of verbs,
as the wolf loses the habit of being a wolf,
of hunger.
I will lose the habit of stars in the heavens
as frozen water loses the habit of snowflakes.
I will take my frozen body
and give it to the young goats that they might graze it.
It was my lot, and easily given,
to lose the habit of being a man.
To lose the habit of living,
I needed only death with murder.
I find it hardest to lose the habit of wolves.
they are alone and on the snow.
Surely I must lose the habit of loneliness.
Surely I must lose the habit of snow.
For what remains, time departs, time returns.
From the book "Bas-Relief with
Heroes"
english translation by Thomas Carlson and Vasile Poenaru.
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