Nina Cassian: Please Give This Seat To An Elderly Or Disabled Person

I stood during the entire journey:
nobody offered me a seat
although I was at least a hundred years older than anyone else on
     board,
although the signs of at least three major afflictions
were visible on me:
Pride, Loneliness, and Art.

Nina Cassian: Youthing

It’s like the process of aging.
Just a process.
Your hair starts to grow wilder,
your skin gets smoother,
your appetites increase.
Suddenly, you sing in the shower and in the rain,
you discover a plant you’ve never seen before
and you munch it.
What’s that tiny star on your left temple?
Maybe a bird scratched it with tender claws
to prod you into flying.
And then, that dialogue with the moon
keeps you awake,
and then, that dream of death
becomes more and more remote
— or is it the other way around?

Nina Cassian: Morning Exercises

I wake up and say: I’m through.
It’s my first thought at dawn.
What a nice way to start the day
with such a murderous thought.
God, take pity on me
—is the second thought, and then
I get out of bed
and live as if
nothing had been said.

(translated from the Romanian by Andrea Deletant and Brenda Walker)