Monday 2 June 2008

A Painfully Blue Flame



There have been heavy rains somewhere,
in remote wild mountains
and look, today I am
so busy, very busy.
The torrents of water
have rushed down the valleys
with their millions
of hungry muzzles.

Quickly must I remove
the trees from their course
way off, up the hills -
But the trees are full of nests
and in each nest
there's a bird,
and in each bird
a flame is burning
painfully blue.
Live candlesticks are the branches
day and night giving light
insatiably within walls.
And the waters are rising.

The hoarfrost winds
are blowing on the crests.
And I must find
at least one shelter
for so many trees,
for so many nests
which ask me
for just one rotation
of the planet
with that strange mountain
more towards the sun.


Petre Ghelmez,
(translated by Dan Duţescu)

2 comments:

  1. I'm new here but had to say how beautiful this was. This shelter, like a "second space", a white room, away from the world, the eyes of the world.

    And it reminded of a poem by Mir Dard (which means "pain", Mir):

    I keep in my heart your picture
    Just as a faerie is kept in the bottle
    In every stone is glass
    In every glass-bottle a faerie.

    But sometimes the heart or glass must break into pieces for her to be recognized.

    And it reminded me of how many yeas ago wizards would keep the voice of someone in a blue bottle so that it would not vanish.

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  2. How strange things are... In my language, mir means "(I) wonder", which reminds me of a beautiful poem by Nichita Stanescu, I translate the last part:

    what a happiness that you are,
    what a wonder that I am
    two differnt songs running into each other, mingling,
    two colours which have never seen each other,
    one from below, turned toward the ground,
    one from above, nearly broken,
    in the fierce matchless fight
    of the wonder of your existence, of the chance that makes me be.

    and yes, I will never cease to wonder that such things can be, as a blue flame in a bird, a picture in a heart, a heart kept in an old blue jar from china, a voice in a blue bottle, a blank piece of paper inside of a broken mirror...

    thank you from coming by, and for saying that my pictures are beautiful...

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