Alchemy [Alchimie]

What turns into poetry?
Only the things that have died out
and are preserved in mind.
Only what you have left behind,
but still can't live without.
Only departure and return.
Only the route of cranes,
The leaves, which fall dead on the ground,
and people's toil and pains.

poem by Lucian Blaga, translated by Octavian Cocoş
Added by anonym
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Self-Portrait

Lucian Blaga is as mute as a swan.
In his homeland
a creature’s snow stands for the word.
His spirit is in quest
in age-old mute quest
since all times
and up to the ultimate bounds, without rest.
He is in quest of the water of which the rainbow drinks.
He is in quest of the water
of which the rainbow
drinks its beauty and non-being.

poem by Lucian Blaga from Unsuspected Steps (1943), translated by Dan Duţescu
Added by Dan Costinaş
Comment! | Vote! | Copy! | In Spanish | In Romanian

Memnon's column

The column, cut deep by the sword of a king
got a beautiful gift, the stone didn't possess:
so, when touched by the first shining rays of the spring
it was able to sing the forbidden distress.

And through ages and ages, its holy, long chord
playing in the aurora, with a sound loud and fair,
the inner destruction and the secret discord,
could be heard all the time spreading notes in the air.

To perform all the time at a moment precise,
it was mended one day by another great king.
Yet, since then, neither played nor was able to sing.

That's because had a soul the stone frigid as ice,
as long as it suffered and bitter tears shed.
But having no wound, the creature was dead.

poem by Lucian Blaga, translated by Octavian Cocoş
Added by anonym
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

I Am Not a Man who Does Things

There are so many of you, men who do things,
everywhere in the streets, under the sky, roofs.
Only I am here purposeless, infamous.
only good for drowning in water.

But I am waiting, have been waiting for a long time
for some wholly good, wholly honest passerby to say to him:
Oh, don‘t turn and look at me,
Oh, don‘t condemn my immobility.
I grow among you, but shaded by my hands
the mystic fruit ripens in another place.
Don‘t curse me, don‘t curse me!

Friend of deep things,
companion of silence,
I play above the doing.
Sometimes with a flute of ancestral bone
I sens myself to death as a song.

Questioning, my brother looks at me,

[...] Read more

poem by Lucian Blaga from In the Great Passage (În marea trecere) (1924), translated by Roy MacGregor-Hastie
Added by Dan Costinaş
Comment! | Vote! | Copy! | In Romanian

The Roman Cemetery

Abused have been the Romans
by certain scholars of more recent times
for not creating metaphysics
like other glorious nations,
but only aqueducts, roads, colosseums, forums,
the eternal city, castra, border, earthwork.
Abused have been the Romans
for building only houses, with atria
receiving daylight from above,
and with the warning on their doorsills: cave canem.

If fate would have you come to Rome some day
and deep into the countryside, my friend, along the Via Apia
you were to wander,
you would then understand, oh, how unjust the balance is
in which people and peoples weigh
each other’s hearts and virtues. For you would see a Way
unrolling on and on into the landscape,
stone after stone, all fitting,
a Way lined left and right

[...] Read more

poem by Lucian Blaga, translated by Dan Duţescu
Added by Dan Costinaş
Comment! | Vote! | Copy! | In Romanian