World Literature:
JIDI MAJIA
(China)
At the Gravesite of Nichita Stanescu (Poem)
Had it been one minute later
The gate of this cemetery where your body rests
Would have been closed under encroaching darkness.
Due to your sleeping posture under the mud
The axe of time has become your shield.
By this time, your arm is a flute of bone;
Words will become the piping of another shadow,
Staring eyes will pass through the stone of darkness,
Thought’s gaze climbs vine-like around eternity’s backbone,
A passing guest swallows up the steel rails of language;
He gulps down famished stars and the pillar of nothingness.
When life turns into a darkened carriage
When death defines your contour
And your unyielding skull overlooks the stars,
Only your truthful poems, like a great bird
Will drift quietly through the sky over Romania.
Nichita Stanescu (1933-1983) is an important Romanian modern poet.