ANSWER ME, GOD, IF YOU CAN

 

A Song Of Trial

 

What a void is born in me. . .

Could it be the sign and proof of my arrival ?

 

You have put me through the mill, God,

And a heavy cross You have given me to bear.

My rib You have speared so, so fiercely,

And I would say nothing if I were Your Chosen One. . .

 

But You have ordained  that I shall be a ploughman.

You have not wanted me to drive a cart, instead you have put me to yoke,

And as I have not been good enough to be sentenced to death

You have thrown me among the ordinary convicts.

 

When I was young, You compelled me to take the road at night completely drunk.

And on the ground that youth makes blood boil

You rolled me through the grass and slag.

Then you gave me a woman and children

And always took me for a perjurer,

My love and distress

You passed through a sieve.

 

You stopped me from having supper with my dear ones,

You ordered me to sigh for the others,

You gave me boredom instead of pieces of silver,

And also enemies to tear my neck.

 

You sent me tearful mistresses, fate’s duplicity,

Even when I stretched myself for life.

 

You made the dead appear in my way.

As I prayed with my hand stretched out, you slapped me.

You did not tell me what was behind my fault,

And You pulled my soul along until it was blunted and warped.

Instead of opening it wide as for the others,

You half-opened the little gate.

And you gave me love with a little spoon

In bed as to the dolts.

 

Great, Almighty you are, God,

But the void obscuring the end of my path

Entitles me to ask You a humble question:

 

Why have I made my legs and body  bleed

While cutting with a hatchet a poor hillock through a jungle

Full of beasts and twisted green lianas

When close by me you’ve spread

A highway with sixteen lanes?

 

 

FOR AGES GOD

 

I have been singing You in my songs for ages God,

And like a spinning top I always spin

Round You.

But I do not know if You call me in the night

Or if I call You.

And I do not know either

If I bend my humble knee

Before You

If I bend in vain

To look into me.

So lonely am I God

But not enough

To be able to rise

And add a brick to Your Building. . .

I am afraid so much that I could stoop

And be unable to pick up

The fruits of my eyes and my ears.

Some little dots got lost among the stars.

A fameless, good- for- nothing slave,

Unworthy to be a carpet laid before You

To tread on at The Last Supper. . .

Bear me, God, for the love

And hatred I nourish for You.

And may I be your pair of shoes.

Throw me into the depths

To give through me sense to Your deeds.

But Heavenly Father,

On the last night

Take me from the flock so that I may be in the light again.

Wash me, wipe me dry, swaddle me

Let me be a daytime star to burn for ever

And hold You in my arms

As if you were my child.

 

 

GIVE ME MY EYES BACK, GOD,

 

So small

and so mean I am God,

in comparison with me a grain of sand

is a Himalayan mountain,

and a tear is a boundless ocean

and endless rain.

 

What miraculous teaching,

what humility You have put me through

when You raised Jesus upon the cross

to redeem me.

 

Why do you let me, Father,

persist in my wickedness

and haughtily judge the sacrifice meant

to wipe evil from the world.

 

Give me my eyes back, God,

and open my ears.

And break the ugliness separating me

from you

when I stand like a thirsty wolf

on the white snow

to tear the innocent little fawns

of  the deer

 

As long as breath flickers

in my cursed flesh

I push another aside

and I do not know what to do with myself. . .

Hatred and being cursed

will follow me to the grave

and my caress is a late regret

when a handful of land  is enough for me. . .

 

I do not turn on You

only when I am tested

by he who is more cunning that I.

Then I feel Your greatness

and then I believe that You alone

Become perfection.

And then, only then am I aware

that Mystery is so close to me,

that Love is in need

of Love alone.

 

Traduceri de Olimpia Iacob& James Meredith