Ionatan Piroșca: When the Words Start to Love

În revista Radix din California (Volume 32, Number 1) în 2005 apărea un articol de 8 pagini despre a doua întîlnire a grupului Cuvinte la schimb, coordonat de Ionatan Piroșca.

În cadrul articolului apăreau 5 poeți cu cîte o poezie, traduse de Andreea și Camelia Luncan: Alin Creangă, Teofil Stanciu, Cătălin Lata, Andreea Luncan, Ionatan Piroșca.

După poezia lui Ionatan Piroșca sînt cele 8 pagini ale articolului cu titlul: The Romanian Poetry Translation Project

When the words start to love – Ionatan Piroșca

When the words
start to love…

With one word, or maybe only with its edge
I buffeted the air in the poplar’s leaves
and several times I circled its green
and all its nests I filled
with multi-colored birds, and naked baby birds
so that each letter in the alphabet could
understand its neighbor.

And then, everything was whistling with meaning –
like a train heading to its final destination.
Everything was vibrating
in the silence that follows the meaning.
And I was thinking, thinking aloud
in the voice of each single letter
straight and farm like the axe that splits
the forest, like the sword of a night between years.

Until it hurt, until it hurt I rummaged around
until I named every bend of the shadow
on its way to the heart, until I was benning
to be clothed in poem, to be dressed up
for the wedding at which they – the angels –
will see whom they cared for all along.

So it was getting lighter when I touched the sky
with a sword, or maybe only its edge. Up
the heart’s stairs the King was climbing,
saving those on his right and left and front and back
with a cosmic gesture – like a cross
That’s how I have learned to be awake when
the words start start to love.