Who am I? What is my place in cosmos?

by Nichita Stănescu


Without me it cannot be, proof that I am.
Without me it couldn't have been;
proof that I come from myself
that is, the self that was.

I am the one without whom it cannot be.
I am the one without whom it couldn't have been.
I am the one who witnessed
The existence of God.

I am the one who witnessed
the non-existence of God, for
I made God visible.

I am made by God, for
I made God.

I am neither good nor bad
I just am.

I am the utterance "I am"
I am the ear that hears "I am"
I am the spirit that understands "I am".

I am the absurd body of "I am"
and its letters.
I am the place where "I am" exists
and its bed, where it sleeps.

----
Romanian original: Cine sunt eu? Care-i locul meu în cosmos?

Finish

by Nichita Stănescu

I was running so fast that

an eye was left behind

watching me

shrinking, -

stripe first, line then...

Noble void traveling through nothingness,

fast non-extant part

traversing death.

----

Song

by Nichita Stănescu

It's an accident of my being:

and then, the happiness inside me

is stronger than me, than my bones,

which you crush in an embrace

always hurting, wonderful always.

Let's chat, let's talk, let's utter

long, glassy words, like the chisels that part

the cold river in the hot delta,

day from night, basalt from basalt.

Take me, happiness, high up, and strike my

forehead against the stars, until

my world long and unending

becomes column or something else

much taller, and much sooner.

How nice that you are, how wondrous that I am!

Two different songs, hurting, merging,

two colors that have never seen each other,

one very low, facing the earth,

one very high, almost broken

in the shivering, incomparable fight

of the miracle that you are, of the accident that I am.

----

Romanian original: Ce bine că eşti

The right to time

by Nichita Stănescu

You have a kind of paradise of yours

in which no words are said.

Sometimes an arm moves

and a few leaves fall ahead of you.

The oval of the face stays bent

towards a light coming from the side

with a lot of yellow in it and a lot of lazy,

with trampolines for the jumpers to death.

You have a sunny way

Of lifting cities like clouds,

and of moving the seconds always

to the South edge of the hour,

when the air turns mauve and cold

and the evening map edgeless,

and I can barely stay alive

breathing, with long eyes, images.

----

Romanian original: Dreptul la timp