Mihai MERTICARU

The Sonnet of the Eternal Story

Madonna, nature’s most sacred miracle,

Endowed with the torso of an immortal queen,

Wouldn’t perfection discomfit your sheer gleen?

Ardent prayer reached its pious pinnacle,

Yet, dainty flower, who brought you here to preen?

Which stars concocted your every particle?

What secrets descend from women’s chronicle

That lent you the pulchritude of the unforeseen?

 

Your fairytale dwells in the ceaseless present

As imperishable as stories can be,

No sculptor missed to chisel your monument,

 

Narrators in marble, warm and coherent.

Your glances covet Hyperions to spree,

Poets deify you to the apogee.

 

The Woman’s Sonnet (I)

Whenever she smiles, she makes way for brisk spring,

Wherever she treads, she effloresces stone,

Wherever she stops, cynosure finds its throne,

Whomever she loves, love’s a Saharan ring.

 

Her torso’s slithering like a violone,

Her scorching undulation is heart-robbing,

She’s tumultuous like Niagara’s rolling,

The shadowed sun obeys her brightness awe-prone.

 

A woman is the blessed, warm summer rain,

The desert’s lush green oasis to perdure,

The better half of the sunlight’s broad domain,

 

The field cherishing the plough’s strenuous strain,

I haven’t found a greater marvel’s allure,

Though she may rival but the high-domed azure.

 

 


The Concert of the Nymphs

Whence have you arisen, unveiled by deep blue

Horizons, my Nereid, Nymph or Naiad?

What cathedral have I crumbled, Hydriad?

Which orchard bough have I torn off to indue?

 

In a queen’s crown like gems in a myriad,

In the wild mountains, my stunning dryad, true,

Where else could the marvel shelter and construe?

What charmed event steered her into our pleiad?

 

But here she comes, gently drawing close to me,

I am soon enwrapped in waves of golden hair,

She throws her arms around my neck, in high glee,

 

Her whispers kindle fire, chill me, fly free,

I seek her mouth, a honeyed voice splits the air,

“Wake up, my love, time runs fast, there’s no repair!”

 

 

English version by Gabriela PACHIA