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| Poems by Eugen Jebeleanu (1911-1991), translated from the Romanian by Matthew J. Zapruder & Radu Ioanid |
| SECRET
WEAPON This thing so many despise but everyone wants to make. This thing which so many people want to catch so they dress up in the sirens of cars which can go 100 miles per hour, and in pressurized bottles, and in dresses with patterns or with no rhyme or reason, in dresses no less shiny than neon on those evenings in summer when I don't know who high above us is quietly scything the crops. This despised thing envied by all because it cannot be seen but exists, because it is wolf and bird and nation of lambs, high, high where it rules the moon without saying a word. This thing so precious it costs almost nothing, which reveals itself to only a few, giving itself to all, wolf, bird, lamb (without tail! without end!) belonging to all (if they can catch it) which cannot be fashioned by hands with flint finger bones. This thing which sings, which bites if it's needed, which keeps you warm wolf bird lamb breath of the Invisible. THE SPRING OF ALL SEASONS Now more than anything else I believe in grass. It gets paler during the night in such a natural way with transparent bees that temporarily leave me. Tomorrow they will tremble again in their vestments made of sky. And into the room you long ago abandoned enters the chirping of meadowlarks pecking the last scattered grapes of the stars. My tired eyes, my heart of 19 years ... Everything is possible. And I passed, and I'm passing, and I shall pass. Forever I find myself in everything. From my eyes I brush the happiness of those who are gone, happy that they remain in me. I am a clearing. I am full of the bluish flapping of sunrise, cool going through me. My forehead and lashes are frosted, all the missing ones sing within me. My blue lids are closing. I will reawaken always. TOWN ON FIRE Just before I would set it on fire, I would yell, Get out of the houses! But don't take anything with you! And I would stay motionless -- shadow and sign of light, watching how everyone would come out running, dressed only in skins, in their own skin. Winged, they would leave furniture the landscape of so many quarrels, kitchens the site of so many shortages, those same walls with their boredom confronting all those little shelves of books unread for lack of time, and time the color of cold bread. Now fly! I would shout, blowing in order to lift them, and they would fly, all of them, without ever looking over their shoulders. NOT MORE With a shout I resurrected silence. From silence, I gave birth to the word. A feather balanced in the sky, a rabbit hid from the shout. But I wasn't able to bring you back, not even for a moment. And all night the wind blew a whistle in an endless tunnel. HAPPINESS Here I am with No More and No Less, and with one more bag on my back. After this you get a strong handshake, the seal of nails in the arch of your palms, and some drops wrung from geranium. Their embraces are tearing the buttons I myself sewed last night. Mechanized lightning illumines my face. Nadar has transformed me into eternity. My wrinkles will all be retouched. I went over there to the other side. Congratulations. HOW I DIED Without any torment, without any torment, only a weakness. And even that was no longer mine, like a few liquid branches from a former oak in a forgotten, faded, photograph. One branch was summoned this way, one summoned that way, the others were all summoned other ways, and the oak was now a sort of water, a sort of sea of piano keys, every key a transparent spade, and every lip of water indifferently murmuring the spade, and the shovel. And I overheard two leaves whispering Look, father is dying. THE SOCIAL CONDITION Not being a purebred dog and not having a good name, Krantz is kept on a dirty balcony in the rain and wind ... |
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