The grains burst from too much gold.
Scattered around red poppy drops–
girl in the field,
eyelashed as long as barley stalks,
gathers bundles of clear sky in her gaze
and sings.

I lie in the shadow of poppies
Without desires, needs, remorse.
I am flesh and dirt.
She sings.
I listen.
On her warm lips my soul is born.

translated by Andrei Codrescu

Little girl, put your hands on my knees.
Eternity I believe was born in a village.
Here every thought is more slow
and your heart pulses less frequently,
as if beating not in your chest
but deep in the earth somewhere.
Here the thirst for redemption is met,
and if you have got your feet bloody
you can rest on a clay bank.
Look, it is evening,
The soul of the village hovers around us,
like a shy smell of cut grass
like a drift of smoke from thatched roofs
like the frolicking of young goats over high graves.

translated by Peter Jay

My beauty,
in the evening when you hold
my head in your lap,
your dark eyes are the spring
from which night flows over valleys,
mountains and plains
to cover the world
with a sea of darkness.
So black are your eyes, my light.

translated by Andrei Codrescu

I only have you, my temporary body–
I don’t adorn you with blue and yellow flowers–
your weak mud is too small for the terrible
soul I carry.

Give me a body, you mountains,
you seas,
give me a body capable of bearing
my madness in full!
Big earth, be my trunk,
be the chest for this furious heart,
be the shelter for the storms that toss me,
be the vessel of my stubborn self!

My great footsteps will then be heard
in the vast cosmos–
I will be unstoppable and free,
the way I am,
holy earth!

When I make love
I’ll stretch all my oceans to the sky,
they will be rolling, vigorous arms
to take and bend his waist,
to kiss his bright stars.

When I hate
I’ll smash under my stone feet
the poor trembling suns
and perhaps I’ll smile.

But I only have you, my temporary body.

translated  by Andrei Codrescu