If you would sleep my darling, on railway tracks one morning
the blushing trains would whisper on tiptoes while you’re still
huge bales of cotton-candy the sky will be adorning
we’d all be drunk with dew milk and dancing a quadrille
An angel will be coming from high and ancient railways
to iron out your sleep time with peacock feathers light
and large sequoia forests they’ll plant on lonely byways
in markets to spread gratis soap bubbles big and bright
Your hair of early sun rays will conquer cold siberias
the snow to sizzle slowly on ostrich heads in suits
and then in frigid barracks your eyelashes in series
will linger on damp pillows of teary young recruits
But you don’t sleep, my darling, on railways old and shoddy
where filthy trains pass daily, with charcoal dusty, fake
they miss the perfect beauty, a maiden’s sweet fresh body
and for their sake I’m weeping, I’m crying in their wake
(from the volume Testament - 400 de ani de poezie românească - 400 Years of Romanian Poetry - Daniel Ionita - editor and principal translator, assisted by Daniel Reynaud, Adriana Paul and Eva Foster - Minerva Publishing- 2019)
Translator: Daniel Ioniță
see more poems written by: Mircea Dinescu
