The drought killed every breeze, and its fever won’t yield,
Sun rays melted on high and have leaked on the field.
All that’s left is the sky – empty, hot and forlorn.
Buckets draw filthy mud from the fountains which mourn.
With increasing aplomb from the forests below
Fires dance wild and devilish slow dances of woe.
I follow my father up the old bushy hills,
The pine trees are scratching me, evil and grime.
We have started together on the hunting of deer,
In this hunt born of famine, the Carpathians we climb.
Thirst is crumbling me. On a hot stone flows, boiling
The thinnest of threads creeping down from the well.
My head hangs in gloom on my shoulder. I
’m toiling As if on a planet, dark, vast, strange to tell.
We wait in a place where the waters still sigh;
Rare spring waves, a-strumming on their thin silvery strings.
When the sun will have set, when the moon’s in the sky,
In a row, they will come on their path, from afar,
The deer, one by one, for a drink where death stings.
I tell father I’m thirsty; he waves me to be quiet.
Oh, dazzling magic water, how limpid is your sway!
I feel I’m bound, through thirst, to the creature which will die
When law and custom we shall throw away.
What whittled rustle does the valley breathe!
What dreadful evening lingers upon the universe!
Blood spills on the horizon, my breast is read,
as if I wiped my bloody hands on it – a crimson curse.
Ablaze with violet fires, like altars, ferns are burning,
And all the stars, bedazzled, twinkle through them and shine.
How much I wish you wouldn’t come, you wouldn’t come,
Beautiful offering in these woods of mine!
And vaulting she appeared, and then she stopped
Gazing around as in some kind of fright,
Thin nostrils faintly poised and quivering, on water,
Drew copper circles in the fading light.
Her eyes were shining moist, perplexing, unexplained,
I knew she’d die, she’d hurt, she’d shed a tear.
In me, it seemed, a frightening myth remained,
About the girl who changed into a deer.
From up on high, the pale and lunar light
On her warm fur was sifting a wilting cherry flower.
Oh, how I wished, for just one time, one night,
My father’s gunshot hit astray that hour!
Instead, the valley roared. Down, fallen on her knees,
Her head was tilting upward, towards a gloomy star,
Anon it fell, arising from the water
Elusive swarms of beads, black from afar.
A strange blue bird heaved off between the branches,
My deer’s life too, for late horizons meant,
Was flying smoothly, like some autumn bird
Absconding her old nest, forgotten, spent.
Under a spell, I went and closed her eyes,
Those shady eyes, beneath her horns, so sad.
Startled, I jumped, all pale and numb, when father
Screamed full of joy: – We now have meat, my lad!
I tell father I’m thirsty, he waves for me to drink.
Oh, dazzling magic water, how gloomy is your sway!
I feel I’m bound through thirst to the creature which died
As law and custom we have thrown away.
But law is all in vain and has no place,
When our lives are hardly keeping pace,
Custom and mercy are but soulless, barren,
As hungry lies my sister, sick, dying in the warren.
From its left nostril father’s gun spits smoke
And windless do the leaves run from the oak!
A frightening fire does my father rise.
Oh, how the forest changed, there’s no disguise!
From earthly grass, I cup my hands around
A little bell, with silver starry sound...
As from the grill grabs father with his nails
The deer’s red heart, and all of its entrails.
So what’s a heart? I’m hungry! I want to live, desire...
Oh, do forgive me maiden, my dearest in the fire!
I doze. How tall the fire! The forest, how replete! I cry.
What’s father thinking? I eat and cry. I eat!
(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 Ionita
see more poems written by: Nicolae Labiş
