Grigore Vieru

Sky of hands

 

Motto: ‘I dream the Earth more and more’

 

Sun, what hands spin you around,

What breath, what mind

That you stay so clean?

In the world, flow hot

Springs of blood,

Murder in them

Washes its feet.

Not love – fear spins the Earth

I want to shout

God, I want to shout.

So little is Earth today!

The Second keeps it

In a bag

A shopping bag.

With your friend,

Almighty Sun

With your brother:

Watermelon… Sweet watermelon.

We have

To do something

Now.

A sky of hands

A sky of manly hands

We need to rise around Sun

Why are you silent, Sun?

Say something.

Silence is not golden.

It’s bloody.

 

Crucified Nightingale

 

 

No one can transport

Earth into Heavens.

Perhaps only the Nightingale

Only her song perhaps.

But her tongue was severed

Nobody hears her anymore,

No one can hear her sing

On the church cross:

‘Awake, God,

Lest Man be victor!’

 

 

The sky fallen from your eyes

 

The sky fallen from your eyes

And has crumbled.

The Sun fallen off your face

And has frozen.

Petrified is the cool wind

Missing your deft hands.

Looking for you

The springs have hidden in dusts.

Like a fallen tree

The tongue itself,

Is hearing its seemingly fall.

God, so lonely

So lonely

I have never before been!

 

From now

 

From now, I could

Live legless even,

Yes, without them – the legs!

Whomever I wanted to reach

I reached.

And eyeless,

Yes, without them – the eyes,

I could live.

Whomever I wanted to see

I saw.

And armless

I could live,

Yes, without them – the arms!

Whomever I wanted to embrace

I embraced.

Alone even, my darling, from now

Like blood stain on gravestones,

Like a star falling in void,

Like a vulture on mountains,

Yes, alone

I could live.

 

This is us…

This is us:

Appropriately good

In the midst of evil.

Evil… never!

Night is astonished at

Itself brooding

Darkness

But hatching

Broods of light.

The Poet by Grigore Vieru

                    to Alghimantas Baltakis

All across the desert 

There was only one well.

It seems strange, but

The blind discovered it.

‘What a marvellous window!’

Said he, remembering the saying

Of the wise elders: ‘If 

The truth is in the well,

I jump in it.’

Indeed, he was travelling 

With his clothes all wet.

There were countless versts  

Down to the water in the well

And all those thirsty

Kept their burnt lips stuck 

To the blind’s clothes.

 

Library of Dew

Brother,
I’ve seen rich countries
Where I would have stayed
As poor.
Brother,
There’s a full world of bridges
You must cross,
Shaking hands with the Devil.
Brother,
I can die anytime
But not anywhere.
I can only die
With my face reflected into
‘that genius of grass
which is Dew’.

I have torn this Rose 

I utter words,

To take in air.

I fall asleep,

To know no more.

I slice bread,

To make Mother happy.

Listen to the Blackbird,

To lie not.

I watch the linden tree,

To forget not.

I have torn

This Rose. Why?