Entering springtime labors
I
Heart larger than the body,
jumping from all sides at once
and tumbling from all sides down,
upon it,
just like a devastating lava rain,
you, content larger than form, see
self-knowledge, see
why matter is born of itself in pains,
so it may die.
He alone dies who knows his self,
he alone is born who is
to himself witness.
I should run, I have told myself,
but for this I will first have
to turn my soul
towards my unmoving ancestors,
withdrawn into the towers of their own bones,
like marrow,
unmoved
like things thorougly finished.
I can run, because they are inside me.
I shall run, because only that which is
motionless in itself
can move,
only the one alone in himself
has company, and knows that heart, undisplayed,
shall collapse harder towards its own
center,
or,
broken in planets, shall let itself be flooded
by living beings and planets.
or
shall rest laid down under the pyramids,
like behind an alien bosom.
II
All is simple, so simple that it
becomes unfathomable.
All is so close, so
close, that
it crawls behind the eyes
and rests unseen.
All is so perfect
in springtime
that I can acknowledge it
only surrounding it with myself,
like about a grass arising confessed
by words to the mouth that utters them,
confessed by mouth to heart,
by heart to its seed,
the one in itself motionless, alike
to the earth's seed
which extends all around it
an infinity
of arms of gravity,
gathering all to self and all at once
in an embrace so strong
that movement jumps through its arms.
III
I shall run thus towards all sides
at once,
I'll run after my own heart,
like a war chariot
pulled from all sides at once
by a herd of flogged horses.
IV
I shall run until the advance, the rush
wil itself overcome me
and drive away from me
like fruit skin from the seed,
until the running
will run to its very self and rest.
And I shall fall down like the young man
welcoming his own lover.
V
And after having made the run
surpass me,
after it
in itself moving shall rest
like stone, or
rather like mercury
behind the mirror
glass,
I shall watch myself in all things,
I shall embrace with myself
all things at once,
and they
shall throw me back, after
everything that in me was thing
would have long passed into things.
VI
Here I am
remaining what I am
with flags of loneliness, with shields of cold,
back, towards myself I run,
snatching myself from everywhere,
snatching me from my frontside,
my backside, and my right side, and
my left side, and above me, and
below me, taking leave
from everywhere and gifting
everywhere signs of remembrance:
to the sky - stars,
to earth - air,
to shades - branches with leaves upon them.
VII
...strange body, assymetric body,
amazed of itself
in the presence of spheres,
standing astounded before the sun,
patiently waiting for the light to grow
a body of same standing.
VIII
Being grounded upon your own ground
when you are seed, when winter
liquefies its white, long bones
and springtime springs up.
Leaning upon your own land
while, man, you're lonesome, while you're haunted
by unloving,
or simply just while winter
is decomposing and springtime
is moving its spheric space
like the heart
from itself to its edges.
Entering cleansed in the labors
of springtime,
telling seeds they are seeds,
telling earth it is earth!
But first and foremost
we are the seeds, we are
those seen from all sides at once,
like we would dwell at once into an eye,
or on a field, in which instead of grass
grow gazes - and us with ourselves
at once, tough, almost metallic,
we sew the threads, so they
might be like all things
amongst which we live
and which
our heart gave birth to.
But first and foremost
we are the seeds and we get ready
to throw ourselves from our selves in something else
much higher, something
bearing the name of springtime...
Being inside phenomena, always
inside phenomena.
Being a seed and grounded
unto your own ground.
Translator: Vasile Andreica
see more poems written by: Nichita Stănescu
