Prayer was falling on a platform

in memory of the poet Ioan Alexandru

It wasn’t winter, it was no winter at all…
Maybe only cold people whitening their eyes towards you.
And their eyes were turning into long icicles aimed at you.
I didn’t even know what to tell you first:
melt them, face them the blaze of your heart.
But you were writing a poem on a platform.
Just like a passenger taking out his ticket, you made up yours.

Like in a dream, it was a bit of evening and it seemed
we had actually arrived somewhere: “Let’s stop!” you said
untying your hands in a prayer. “I will go no farther.
The world is heavy and the letters have tired.”
And the light was running dry all around,
the station was running dry of wagons
and the seconds were draining in the big blind clock.
I remembered the silence applauding
and saw angles walking all around you.
It wasn’t winter, it was no winter at all.

You worked, getting in and out the house of bread –
it was there that you kept your words.
But this wasn’t very easy to see
for there was so much smoke, there were so many people
in the station. And none had time to check your ticket.
They just grabbed a crust of bread and left,
with your prayers humming all around them like a swarm of bees.
There was a short winged waiting awaiting for you
and the roar of the hour slowly turned into silence.

There was an ocean under your feet, an ocean
growing deeper and deeper, with a multitude of sentences in it.
Some were like condors others like seagulls.
They were coming after your love. Who said
you were in a railway station? “How many are we?” you asked.
“Well, it’s you and him and him and…Me” came the answer.
“This is good!” you said. And it was evening, always evening;
day after day, hour after hour, it was evening.
“In the evening, I pray.”
And the snow began to fall on the platform.
No, it wasn’t winter. It was no winter at all.

Translated by Andreea Luncan

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