POETRY IS LIKE TAKING A DEEP BREATH

Wednesday 6 February 2013

TEMPTATION

The Garden Of Eden - Michelangelo


Call yourself alive? Look, I promise you
that for the first time you’ll feel your pores opening
like a fish mouth, and you’ll actually be able to hear
your blood surging through all those lanes,
and you’ll feel light gliding across the cornea
like the train of a dress. For the first time
you’ll be aware of gravity
like a thorn in your heel,
and your shoulder blades will ache for want of wings.
Call yourself alive ? I promise you
you’ll be deafened by the sound of dust falling on furniture,
you’ll feel your eyebrows turning to two gashes,
and every memory you have - will begin
at Genesis.

Nina Cassian
1924 -

translated from the Romanian by Brenda Walker and Andrea Deletant


The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry