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Poems

Autumn Breeze Read Poem

The world is paved with light,
Like a church with smoke and resin.

Men drunk with the skies
Stagger in prophets' vestments.

Cold, new, fragile, virginal,
Light leads mankind in her skirts
And her smooth silk touch
Invests neck and soul with ornaments.

Grape-clusters, trod and scattered,
Are red shingle, garden berries
To the light.

Heavy horse-blankets in which
Leaves lie buried
Are slowly woven.

From the soul's resurrection,
From the spring,
She-goats of memories drink;
Cats romp with kids
To the glassy whistling of finches.

In the wind you pick out a babe's cry
Sung by a voice from the earth.

Born in me, the babe remains in me,
And I throw the sorcova* of light
Into its arms.

from the collection, Fitting Words.

*A garlanded New Year's stick, symbolic of rejuvenation

Between Two Nights Read Poem

I stuck my sharp spade into the room.

Outside the wind blew,
Rain fell.

And I dug below earth into my room.

Outside the rain fell,
Wind blew.

I heaved soil through the window
Out of the hole.

The earth was black,
Its curtain blue.

Soil piled high
Against panes.

The peak was world-wide;
At the top Jesus wept.

The spade broke.

He who broke it stands there
With stone relics:
The Father himself.

I returned through time
By the way I descended.

In the empty room
Anxiety again.

I wanted to climb to the peak.

In the heavens a star shone.

In the sky it was late.

Engraving Read Poem

Through the mist today in sun
Was born of chaos, dead
At morning nightfall,
Gray as a tent.

While the soul descends
Melancholy across memories
Like a thin dust
Of sparks and glitter,
Over books
With stale musk smell,
Leaves decayed
At the backs of drawers,
The clock, rain behind,
Beating with heart's pulse,
Seconds dead in flocks
Tick endlessly by.

And what quiet falls!
And how the soul is heard
Shaking wet wings
Across eternal hoarfrosts!
Within my loneliness
I breathe time
Which knows what I do not,
And across unraveled eras
I make a sign with my pen and write.

Inscription on a Glass Read Poem

Round crystal on velvet shade,
Serenity at my heart,
I created myself from sky-waters,
Froze under icicles of light.

I am born virgin in my place
Unceasingly as dew-pebbles,
Sparkling in my depths;
The more the less I hold.

But you won't know what and how many
Sources have filtered noiselessly through me.

And you don't know how many warm lips
Have sipped at my flashing lip.

They are here now in the air like leaves
When you try my untasted freshness;
Your mouth sipping new drops
Will kiss shadow lips in flight.

Irresolution Read Poem

I'll kill my time and dreams, then.

I'll mend my cloak in the dark.

As thanks, I'll know that icy skies
Will filter starlight through the holes.

Shall I allow the sky to fill my cloak
with vast treasure?

Richly clad, shall I pass with
torn shroud?

Lucifers on my elbow, gilded
on my breast,
Tattooed with lightning, shall I
not conquer, not fight?

Am I to beat time's mire with
closed eyes?

Shall dolts strip me of my cloak on the road,
sneering, tavern-drunk?

Like butterflies who endure the caterpillar
bearing them through the dust,
Shall I endure within me the burden
of two lives?

A man, no less worn out, will open
in the morning
My commermorative tomb.

With immaculate hand
Break me, death-changed into bread,
To pieces in the sun.

And to my brothers who follow, he whispers
he'll share me out.

But the day that passes in its passing woulds
Humbles my staff and bends my lilies low.

So my heart hangs like a padlock
With lost keys at the gates of light.

Why can I not know, why can I not hear
What the sense of day is and the price
of eking it out?

Open yourself to me, my soul, through
the flute's seven eyes,
And let song drown life and death.

Mount of Olives Read Poem

Mount with heaven-pointed peak,
Steady in blue dream.

Beaten by ancient hate
With chain whips
The flattened plain, hungry for height,
Watches its chance to rise above you,
Bring you the dust
Roused by flocks and clumps of men.

Mount, censers of springs,
Altar of hawks, house of suns,
Denying the brief flower
Drunk with its fragrance -
You at the margin of great mysteries
Are a sign of lasting power,
Irremedial life,
Most hemmed-in of stars!
Our soul, flimsy and poor,
Knows nothing of springs and harvests.

Our hope wanders among us,
Leaves its faint track in the mud,
A wheel with gold spokes.

from the collection, Fitting Words (Cuvinte Potrivite)

Perhaps It's Time Read Poem

Perhaps it's time, since there falls
From trees all leafage that has been
and shone,
To look our past calmly in the face
When its track of shade starts to pain.

Without humility and pride,
Let us recall ourselves in the night
from thread to thread,
And witness on rocks the zigzags of chalk
In which fragile testimony left its trace.

One day, trifling, small, one night blazing
with astral light,
Sometimes crucified, sometimes free and great,
often small,
Shepherds of chrysanthemums, prophets
for ants.

Above us eagles float blue in the sky.

And if our knees are torn by thorny paths,
Why does everything that has ever been
turn to sadness?

Is it not autumn?

Let us make a shelter
of ourselves,
And gather the desert near the warmth
of homes.

Let's take spent ashes from ancient altars,
Kindle them anew, give them
more fruitful smoke.

Let us scatter the seed on future plains
Hoping sadly for the late harvest.

from the collection, Feeling Words.

Song Read Poem

I defended myself in vain; now I'm slinking away
In the white moon's shade, tall spear shattered.

I had put dikes of earth and water between us,
And everywhere we were beside each other.

I meet you waiting at the track's every turn,
Silent perpetual companion.

At the wells you wet your palms with water and give me some,
Water that sprang up soundless among stones.

You've undone your blouse and ask, breast in hand,
If I wish to quench my thirst there, or at the well.

You've sought the icicle, bending your mouth down with mine,
Wishing to drink its glitter at the same time.

Blended into everything, like shade, like thought,
Light carries you within her and the earth has raised you.

Your silence is heard in every sound,
In thunderstorms, prayer, steps, violins.

What I suffer seems to pain you,
Whether birth or desolation.

Close beside me,yet distant.

Betrothed for ever; wife never.

The Sea-Beast Read Poem

There you are, alone again in a cockle-shell boat,
Fighting on a sea-bed with great clouds from the sky
And rocked by the sea, wild beast, as if by a wet-nurse,
Smothered in song by its iron paps.

Breakers heaved up with darkness, serpents, eels,
And in the swarm, fanatical roundworms
Pursue you: May victory and struggle cast you down
Since you breached the storm with your brow.

Above your steady victory's work
A single star-sliver watches over all the world
Like a spider from the sun down-twined,
Security and shield in the passing whirlpool.

I see you carried off by the wind; the elements
Do not spare you.

As in that time when man, having boat
Nor oar, was a sick and pallid monkey
Terror-stricken before celestial walls.

Far off you are, far off.

Like butterflies that leave
Their chrysalides on branches far from their native peachtree.

Far off indeed, brother, from yourself and home,
Chasing the whole ocean, a foreigner, riding the waves.

Where does he go alone, woven in so dense a sea?

from the collection, Feeling Words.

The Sick Angel Read Poem

My angel remembers
Joys of former times.

Sky reaches to his taste
With sour milk, sharp grapes.

It no longer sends stars
Painted like holy flags,
And the wind no longer spurs evening
With aromas of wine and oil.

Orchards, fields have lost their bloom,
Crops their color and leaves.

Beneath warm skies black waters
Carry bubbling asphalt sludge.

Wherever his head seeks to rest
That place is thorny and grass turns to nails.

Cranes cross heavens without him;
Their wings call to him no more.

His heart can no longer stand
The life of eternity, the ogive nest,
And little by little, for the first time,
He feels hideous in time's crumbling.

Unknown to him an earthly tumor
Has begun to sprout
On his white body.

from the collection, Feeling Words

Poems by Tudor Arghezi

Ion Nae Theodorescu (21 May 1880 – 14 July 1967) was a Romanian writer who wrote under the pen name Tudor Arghezi (Romanian pronunciation: [ˈtudor arˈɡezi]. He is best known for his unique contribution to poetry and children's literature.

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Poems