broken glass (poems by Florin Caragiu, English translation: Simona Sumanaru)

(photo: Diana Popescu)


1. broken glass

When there are no saints in handy, God works through broken glass:
he picks it up from the dirt, contemplates the mud mixed with grass,
gently removes it, and cleans it up with his silence-wetted hands
until a sparkle appears that mirrors his face.

Then, with one firm move accelerated into thousands of things and beings,
he bends it. Towards evening, he approaches carrying your eyes in his palms,
while you delicately sing out of tune at your window; a flower pot briefly touches
a sleeve pleat, overturns, breaks, and the flowers fall asleep on the windowsill.

Words hop on the keyboard, life resembles a leaf
with which the wind adorned your snow-touched hair and the road,
a tongue engulfed into the throat of mystery. When there are no saints in handy,
God sets up a fire from dry leaves around which
all beings gather to warm up their trembling hands.


2. the child

Sometimes God sneaks in between us like a child
which the grown-ups, wrapped up in worries, don’t even notice.

He touches our faces painted in colors of war with the intangible smile
of the most unprotected being which, with disarming faith,
makes us forget even for a moment
time piercing deeper through our flesh with every struggle.

He nears in full trust, putting our shadow to sleep
in his swallow-encircled palms. From time to time,
his silence pours over us like a water carrying away the gravestones
when, with an arched gesture, we pull him closer to our hearts.

Then we dream with open eyes and see ourselves
all the way from the end of the road, sheltered by a sigh
deeper than the lights scattered over the black-greenish land.


3. entanglement

the game takes us among lasers and mirrors
towards the thrusting-place on the shadowed half of time

the child’s gaze curves up the space, scatters its colors
onto the rag with which he gathered the coolness of grass at dawn

my song pierces through your shoulder, your tear throbs in my sternum,
all beings abandon their red circle in the shivering of their voice

water falling through the twig basket is a pleasant pain
in a story that can no longer depict us separately

the skin is now the raw meat of the body peeled off of light,
the bleeding of limits when the freshly deserted steps fade out

the only thing that’s left is the blind jump towards God’s humbleness.


(poems published in the volume "catacombe. aici totul e viu" ("catacombs. everything is alive here"), Vinea Publishing House, Bucharest, 2008, pp. 18-20. English translation: Simona Sumanaru.)