The air dances around you and silence looks
different now. The Dead Sea is alive again, stillness acquires a
name, the world quivers on a beach
covered with blind seashells. A giant who has come down
from the mountains is posing for a naive painter. Only
eagles feel
planetary alignment, they are the only ones who can
understand man's amazed look when the woman
comes riding a thirsty gryphon. Whatever is left of life
takes refuge in your dreams. The shade of the harbour is
only generous with the spleeping statues. Every day arises
from the blazing calendar, close to the scream of the siren
out at large. The past blooms out of the rock in the sea and
weighs on your heart. The sand hesitates: I am the
beginning.
In the red cells I see only you. Even the blind see the world
again
through the eyes of their own memories. Doing survey
missions
on the maps of the world, the dolphins ask
the purple red colour of the next eon whether night comes
from beyond words

by Ionel Bota, translated by Lidia Vianu

I would climb mountains
Hijack cars
Walk 26 days
And almost die
If that meant I could hug you
Even one time

Grey clouds crack open, weeping angels,
rain cascades, a liquid broom
washing earth's filth and sin.
The smell? Enigmatic—spring's embodiment,
summer evening's bold scent.
Drops like strings, smacking,
a hundred clapping hands under a faucet.
The wind keeps pace, whooshing,
shaking excess from leaves.
Tires glide on wet slick,
cars pass like crashing waves.

Peaceful, serene, innocent, refreshing.
Cold strings, exploding like macro water grenades,
rejuvenate skin.
A wonder to stare at, always.
Whether three, experiencing first cognizance,
or thirty-one, marveling.
Rain, a majestic measure of universal peace
in a world of chaos and noise.
Chaotic itself, like a jazz band drumming,
wind wailing past windows—
yet so serene.

Still, rain brings annoyance.
Bones ache, joints lock and creak,
and a youthful strut turns rusty tin-man waltz.
But its mysticism deafens pain
and frees the mind to fly.
Clarity, a rare enigma,
tickles skin raises arm hairs,
kisses lips with reality,
appearing ****, flirting with prismatic curves—
often ignored, and unnoticed.
Euphoria is splendidly remiss.

So easy to catalog memories,
reflect in life's mirror,
and determine what needs changing.
Everything changes with time.

Life, a garden.
We inherit seeds of knowledge,
plant interesting parts.
Love and sadness water, shine on plants
bearing flowers we call friends:
tulips, lilacs, dangerous roses.
Unique: blue, orange, red, white, pink.
Some sweet, some foul.
Each one is unique.
Flowers grow wild and wilt on vines.
Some aren't flowers, but weeds,
diseasing what they touch, like death.
Covered in insects, eroding beauty.
As a gardener, you decide:
anarchic disarray?
Or grab shears, and prune ugliness.
Friends who matter won't let your soul wilt.
Yes, rainfall brings such clarity.

But clarity's bubbles are superficial.
Easily burst, window closing, smog reconfiguring.
A bowling ball rolls across the sky and strikes pins—
a lucky strike.
Tree branches of light shoots extend,
lasts a second, and seems slower.
Adrenaline rushes, heart pounds like a drum.
Seconds pass, another strike, another flash.
A storm had come...
and it would pass.

You don’t have to rise like the sun each day—
some mornings, it's enough just to open your eyes,
to sit with the silence,
to feel your heartbeat and whisper, “I’m still here.”

You are not the storm that passed,
nor the ruins it left behind.
You are the seed under the soil,
waiting for the right rain,
the quiet miracle of a soul not giving up.

Let no one shame the pace of your healing.
Let no voice drown out the hush of your trying.
Because surviving is not small.
And breathing, on hard days,
is a kind of bravery the world forgets to praise.

So rest, dreamer.
You don’t need to shine tonight.
You just need to stay—
soft, alive,
and wildly worthy of tomorrow.

You and I—
we feel,
we love,
we regret.
Yet we remain
the binding particle
of a formless self.

They divide us,
pit us against each other.
We found safety
for thirteen days.

Before dawn,
we felt the breath
that seeps through cracks
into minds like a narrow thread of force,
and the fog spilled out.

Above our heads, false stars
created by warm bodies
to annihilate
what passed through the gate
of a birthing woman.

We write words to conjure
happy endings
at the ball of extermination
that tears apart
the pulsing light
of a thousand veins.

Please sit with me
before you go
Do you feel it—
the mourning procession
of human beings
transforming into a state of fission
and drifting away?

And a sigh is so sad
of trembling atoms
when the victim becomes the destroyer.

Feel the force of the fall,
and do not shatter hope
even if the world
trembles to its core
because there is still YOU,
still ME,
and still

OTHERS.