Nichita Stnescu

Burned forest
Black snow was falling. The tree line shone when I turned to see I had wondered long and silent, alone, trailing memory behind me. And it seemed the stars, fi ed as they were, ground their teeth, a stiffened ne us, an infernal machine, tolling the halted hours of consciousness. Then, a thick silence descends, and my e!ery gesture lea!es a comet tail in the hea!ens. And I hear e!ery glance I cast as it echoes against some tree. "hild, what were you seeking there, with your gangly arms and #ointed shoulders on which the wings were barely dry black snow drifting in the e!ening sky. A hori$on howling, far from !iew, darting its tongues and anthracite, dragged me fore!er down the mute row, my body, half naked, sliding from sight. In distances of smoke the town afire, bla$ing beneath the #lanes, a frigid #yre. %e two, forest, what did we do& %hy did they burn you, forest, in a toga of ash and the moon no longer #asses o!er you&
From the book "Bas-Relief with Heroes" english translation by Thomas Carlson and Vasile Poenaru.