Echo in Sparga*

Approaching edge unto an evil-sweet hysteria,

My soul sits barred into a penance area

Where bed has ended, with my knees that fold,

I weep my eyes under my elbows, cold.

A lashing and a sepulchre has born

Throughout the echo, shall my lip adorn,

And weary of the crying crows, on crest

Of heavy rain, I lay myself to rest.

I could’ve crumbled as a shallow weft,

Wherefrom my all pains everything that’s left,

My figure growing less, from top to doom,

And carving soothing way toward my tomb.

In stones and wood, an olden cross in standing,

The semandron hits in my ear outstanding,

I build myself in crystalline stained glassing;

In funeral, this day, each thing starts passing.

3^rd July 2016, Constanta, Romania

(translated from ”Ecou în spargă”)

*Sparga or Sparga language is a poetic dialect of the Romanian poet, Nina Cassian, in which some of the nouns, adjectives and verbs are replaced with invented ones.