Constantin Abaluta: Thundering Trajectory (From Romanian)

Thundering Trajectory
By Constantin Abaluta
Translated by A.Z. Foreman

Alone in the train-car,
past a bridge, I heard the river.
Like lightning a pebble punctures the window,
whistles by my head,
perforates the parallel window, and is away.

Train-car speeding away from memory,
you take with you the trajectory of my botched death
with your two holes in glass,
as perfectly timeless
as a saint’s pupils.

The Original:

Traiectorie Fulgerătoare

În tren, singur în tot vagonul.
Traversam un pod, auzeam apa cum curge.
Fulgerător o piatră a străpuns geamul de lîngă mine,
a vîjît pe lîngă capul meu,
a perforat geamul paralel şi-a dispărut.

Vagon care te-ndepărtezi în amintire,
duci cu tine traiectoria ratatei mele morţi
şi cele două găuri în geam,
perfecte în atemporalitatea lor
ca pupilele unui sfînt.

Mihai Eminescu: For The Star (From Romanian)

“Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars - mere globs of gas atoms. I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more? The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination - stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one - million - year - old light. A vast pattern - of which I am a part... What is the pattern, or the meaning, or the why? It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little about it. For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined it. Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?” 
― Richard P. Feynman

Well, Richard Feynman, meet Mihai Eminescu who meditates on love in terms of some light that has travelled for thousands of years at a speed of 186,000 miles per second from a distant star to the Earth.  You two will get along well. Science, no less than religion, can make for good poetry.

For the Star
By Mihai Eminescu
Translated by A.Z. Foreman
Click to hear me recite the original Romanian

It's been a long way for that star
Now rising in our skies:
Its light has trekked a thousand years
To reach our earthborn eyes.

It may have long ago burned out
Amid the blue of space
Though only now its ray has come
To set our sights ablaze.

That icon of a perished star
Climbs heaven's canopy:
We who did not see light that was
Now see what ceased to be.

And so it is when our desires
Go spent into the night.
Our love still follows after us
With an extinguished light.

The Original:

La Steaua

La steaua care-a răsărit
E-o cale-atât de lungă,
Că mii de ani i-au trebuit
Luminii să ne-ajungă.

Poate de mult s-a stins în drum
În depărtări albastre,
Iar raza ei abia acum
Luci vederii noastre,

Icoana stelei ce-a murit
Încet pe cer se suie:
Era pe când nu s-a zărit,
Azi o vedem, şi nu e.

Tot astfel când al nostru dor
Pieri în noapte-adâncă,
Lumina stinsului amor
Ne urmăreşte încă.

Mihai Eminescu: And if (From Romanian)

(Yes, I know, this poem sounds immensely cheesy. But I didn't think it was right not to include at least one poem by Eminescu, and if you read carefully you'll notice something underneath the cheesiness)

And if...
By Mihai Eminescu
Translated by A.Z. Foreman

And if my window feels the branch
Of a stuttering poplar tree,
It is to make me dream once more
Of clasping you to me.

And if the stars glow on the lake
And light its darkling shoal,
It is to flood my mind with peace
And quell my roiling soul.

And if the clouds draw themselves back
To let the moon blaze through,
It is to make this heart recall
How hard I ache for you.

The Original:

Şi dacă...

Şi dacă ramuri bat în geam
Şi se cutremur plopii,
E ca în minte să te am
Şi-ncet să te apropii.

Şi dacă stele bat în lac
Adâncu-i luminându-l,
E ca durerea mea s-o-mpac
Înseninându-mi gândul.

Şi dacă norii deşi se duc
De iese-n luciu luna,
E ca aminte să-mi aduc
De tine-ntotdeauna.

Nichita Stǎnescu: Knot 19 (From Romanian)

The following poem is from Noduri și semne ("Knots and Signs" or, perhaps more connotatively, "Nooses and Omens"), the last volume Stǎnescu published during his lifetime. The book contains poems titled Knot 1, Sign 1, Knot 2, Sign 2 and so on. This is Knot 19. I translated this one once before, but on re-reading said translation I realized it was just too abysmal not to delete and redo.

Knot 19
By Nichita Stǎnescu
Translated by A.Z. Foreman

Be well aware that I can kill,
That I with one stroke of my heel can maul
The peaceable rising star's sweet head.
It's why I have become a painter of walls.

Be well aware that I have no mercy on me
That I merge my blood with birches everywhere.
I bring this with all haste through to your awareness:
Beware what you do.

The Original:

Nod 19

Ia cunoştinţa că pot ucide,
că pot zdrobi cu călcâiul capul suav
al stelei răsărinde şi placide,
din pricina căreia am devenit zugrav!

Ia cunoştinţa că nu am milă de mine,
că sângele meu mi-l amestec cu mestecenii.
Grabnic ţi-aduc la cunoştinţa toate acestea.
Vezi ce faci!