Utopia Unlimited

These tools were good, at first,
to cut, to slash, to stab – but then
they seemed too petty, too inefficient.

So other tools were soon invented,
which could wipe out a man
as easily as you wipe off a stain,
making him vanish – nobody would care –
in the transparent coffins of the air.

These tools were called weapons of mass destruction.
And if iron was not used to make a plow,
and if steel did not give birth to bridges,
it is because they were hungry for death.

But this was long ago and far away,
when there was always war on earth.
Indeed, it’s hard for us to understand –
for us who live, for centuries, in peace …

But blood, a stubborn witness, takes the stand.
 

 A Metaphor

Let’s not allow our weaknesses
– like some hungry, insinuating cats –
to chase our pots and pans,
to shed hair on our bedsheets,
to insult our hearing
with their heartbreaking, hypocritical
meowing.

If you pity them for an instant,
and scratch their bony heads,
they won’t ever leave.
They’ll take on perfect shapes,
like long-molded amphorae,
and become decorative and indispensable.

Leave them at the door,
those vagabonds of old slums.
Don’t allow their sinuous tails
to encircle the furniture’s ankles
or ours.

“Oh, but I love cats
as I love my weaknesses.”

Continuum follows the path taken in Take My Word for It, with poems written in her original English. As in her translated Romanian poems, Nina Cassian is a born lyric story-teller. Many of her poems take the form of short fables or even parables, fashioned with a unique blend of fantasy, seriousness and humour. The section titles – Remember, Creatures from Inner Space, Travelling, Homages, Love’s Boomerang, Finale – give an idea of the book’s range and her capacity for striking turns of phrase, but do not suggest the expressive power which reaches new heights in the longer poem ‘Interpreting Bach’.