Take a look at me now, it is the season of rain

***

The day will never dawn again

Îmi amintesc de tine. Oraşul ăsta era croit pe măsura dragostei. Tu erai croit chiar pe măsura trupului meu. 
Presimţeam că într-o zi ai să te năpusteşti peste mine.

I remember you. This city was tailor-made for love. You fit my body like a glove.
I had no doubt you’d cross my path one day.

Te aşteptam cu o nesfârşită nerăbdare, calmă. Devorează-mă. 

Deformează-mă după chipul tău, pentru ca nimeni altcineva, după tine, să nu mai priceapă cauza unei dorinţe atât de mari.

I waited for you calmly, with boundless impatience. Devour me. 
Deform me to your likeness, so that no one after you will ever again understand the reason for so much desire.

O să rămânem singuri, dragostea mea. Noaptea se va sfârşi. Nu se va mai face ziuă pentru nimeni. 

We’ll be alone, my love. Night will never end. The day will never dawn again on anyone. 

N-o să mai avem nimic altceva de făcut, nimic altceva decât să plângem ziua care a murit. 

Va trece timp. Timp doar.

There’ll be nothing else for us to do but mourn the departed day. 

Time will pass. Only time.

Şi va vei timp. Va veni timp. Când nu vom mai şti deloc să numim ce ne uneşte.
Numele se va şterge treptat din memoria noastră. Apoi, va dispărea complet.

And a time will come when we can no longer name what it is that binds us. 
Its name will gradually be erased from our memory until it vanishes completely.

(Marguerite Duras: Hiroshima, mon amour. A book made into film by Alain Resnais.

Translated into Romanian by Ileana Cantuniari; English translation @ The Criterion Collection)

Over the valley

*

Spring rain (III)

Spring rain (II)

I always knew I loved the sky,

the way it seems solid and insubstantial at the same time;

the way it disappears above us

even as we pursue it in a climbing plane,

like wishes or answers to certain questions—always out of reach;

the way it embodies blue,

even when it is gray.

But I didn't know I loved the clouds,

those shaggy eyebrows glowering

over the face of the sun.

Perhaps I only love the strange shapes clouds can take,

as if they are sketches by an artist

who keeps changing her mind.

Perhaps I love their deceptive softness,

like a bosom I'd like to rest my head against

but never can.

Linda Pastan: Things I Didn't Know I Loved: After Nazim Hikmet

Spring rain (I)

On the threshing floor

And where, where, where is my Gypsy wife tonight

I've heard all the wild reports, they can't be right

But whose head is this she's dancing with on the threshing floor

whose darkness deepens in her arms a little more

And where, where is my Gypsy wife tonight?

Ah the silver knives are flashing in the tired old cafe

A ghost climbs on the table in a bridal negligee

She says, "My body is the light, my body is the way"

I raise my arm against it all and I catch the bride's bouquet

And where, where is my Gypsy wife tonight?

(Leonard Cohen: The Gypsy's Wife)

Come and quench my thirst

Come, just come in this white balcony 

I have saved you the best place

It is everywhere, all around, just come

Wounded or happy, force me to accept the light of this day.

  
May is the month of tulips.

There is music, unheard by others, in my white space

And no dawn but a never-ending white day.

Your waters are deep.

I will show you the way to the ocean.

There is no use for language.

Come and quench my thirst for you.

Sunday mood with tulips

Status quo

They say

They say

Love grows

When the fear of death

Looms.

They say

Courage looms

When the fear

Of never loving again

Disappears

In the smell of the enemy

Who crushes us so much

We can only fight.

Love and courage grow together

When the flesh is rawest

And the spirit charged

And distorted within the nightmare

We see the possibility

Of a future.

(Ben Okri: They Say)

My red spring butterflies

Were we only white birds...

Would that we were, my beloved, white birds on the foam of the sea!

We tire of the flame of the meteor, before it can fade and flee;

And the flame of the blue star of twilight, hung low on the rim of the sky,

Has awakened in our hearts, my beloved, a sadness that may not die.

A weariness comes from those dreamers, dew-dabbled, the lily and rose;

Ah, dream not of them, my beloved, the flame of the meteor that goes,

Or the flame of the blue star that lingers hung low in the fall of the dew:

For I would we were changed to white birds on the wandering foam: I and you!

I am haunted by numberless islands, and many a Danaan shore,

Where Time would surely forget us, and Sorrow come near us no more;

Soon far from the rose and the lily, and fret of the flames would we be,

Were we only white birds, my beloved, buoyed out on the foam of the sea!

(W.B. Yeats: The White Birds)