I am a man alive

by Nichita Stănescu

(part 1 of 2)

I am a man alive.

Nothing of mankind is foreign to me.

I barely have time to wonder that I exist, but

I am always happy that I am.

I am never truly made

because

I have a better and better idea

about life.

I am bewildered by the difference between me

and the blade of grass,

between me and lions,

between me and the islands of light

of the stars.

Between me and numbers,

like between me and 2, between me and 3.

I also have a fault a sin:

I take seriously the grass,

I take seriously the lions,

the almost perfect movements of the sky.

And a casual cut of my hand

makes me see through it,

like through a lens,

the pains of the world, the wars.

From such an event

comes the understanding

that I have for Ulysses - and

the man with the sullen face, Dante Alighieri.

I could hardly imagine

a barren earth, moving

around the sun...

(Maybe also because there are in the world

such verses.)

I like to laugh, although

I rarely laugh, always having something to do,

or traveling on a raft, endlessly,

on the oval ocean of fantasy.

It's an unforgettable show,

to know,

to discover

the map of the expanding universe,

while watching

a childhood photo!

It's an old body of yours,

that you lost

and not even an ad, written

in big letters,

gives you a chance

to find it again.

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Romanian original: Sunt un om viu