Poem
Nina Cassian
AND WHEN SUMMER COMES TO AN END
And when summer comes to an endit’s like the world coming to an end.
Wilderness and terror – everywhere!
Days shrink
till all dignity’s gone.
Wet slabs of cloth
drape our bodies:
dejected coats.
And then we shiver, stumbling
into the holes of Winter Street
on the corner of Decline...
What’s the good of living
with the idea of Spring
– dangerous as any Utopia?
© Translation: 1999, Brenda Walker and Andrea Deletant
EN WANNEER DE ZOMER TEN EINDE KOMT
En wanneer de zomer ten einde komtlijkt het einde van de wereld te komen.
Overal heerst is verlatenheid en angst.
De dag verschrompelt
totdat ze haar waardigheid verliest.
Op ons lichaam voelen we de druk
van natte tegels van textiel:
neerslachtige overjassen.
En huiverend struikelen we verder
door de kuilen in de Straat der Winter,
op het kruispunt met die van het Verval...
Wat heeft het nog voor zin te leven
met de gedachte aan het voorjaar
B gevaarlijk, als alle utopieën?
© Vertaling: 1999, Jan Willem Bos
ŞÎ CÎND VINE SFÎRŞITUL VERII
parcă vine sfîrşitul lumii.Totul e pustiire şi spaimă.
Ziua scade
pînă la pierderea demnităţii
Pe trupurile noastre cad
lespezi ude, de postav:
paltoanele deprimate.
Şi-apoi zgribuliţi, poticnindu-ne,
prin hîrtoapele străzii Iarnă,
colţ cu Declinului…
Ce rost are să mai trăim
cu ideea de primăvară
– primejdioasă, ca toate utopiile?
Poems
Poems of Nina Cassian
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AND WHEN SUMMER COMES TO AN END
And when summer comes to an endit’s like the world coming to an end.
Wilderness and terror – everywhere!
Days shrink
till all dignity’s gone.
Wet slabs of cloth
drape our bodies:
dejected coats.
And then we shiver, stumbling
into the holes of Winter Street
on the corner of Decline...
What’s the good of living
with the idea of Spring
– dangerous as any Utopia?
© 1999, Brenda Walker and Andrea Deletant
AND WHEN SUMMER COMES TO AN END
And when summer comes to an endit’s like the world coming to an end.
Wilderness and terror – everywhere!
Days shrink
till all dignity’s gone.
Wet slabs of cloth
drape our bodies:
dejected coats.
And then we shiver, stumbling
into the holes of Winter Street
on the corner of Decline...
What’s the good of living
with the idea of Spring
– dangerous as any Utopia?
© 1999, Brenda Walker and Andrea Deletant
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