The drought had killed any pale of wind

The sun had melted, the dust stayed skinned.

What was ere left was a parched sky a-flood.

From shafts lean buckets are welling out mud.

Over the forests, increasingly – fires, fires,

Are dancing in savage, satanical spires.

I take after father a-hill through trees arid,

And fir trees claw on me, both evil and torrid.

We both set out for the hunting of goats,

The hunt of famine in the Carpathian mounts.

My thirst scourges me. The small rill of water

From wells boils on the boulders.

My temples are pressing against the shoulder. I am treading as if

On another planet, heavy, immense.

We were lying in wait in a place where still

Springs make sounds with quiet billow’s strings,

When the sun melts down, when the moon begins,

It is thence where the deers, one by one,

Proceed to have their quiet fill.

I tell father I am thirsty and he beckons me to shush

Confounding water, oh, how clear you bounce!

I feel the bond of thirst with that that’s bound to fade

At times outlawed by canon and by customs.

As on an altar, ferns flare in bluish flames,

Bedazzled stars spurt twinkling in-between,

Woe, how I wish you didn’t come, you didn’t come,

Beauteous martyr of my forest, queen!

And still, the valleys roared.

Wobbling, I went and closed

The shady eyes, dolefully flanked by horns,

And startled ghostly-silent when my father

Gasped gladly in my ear: ‘We have meat!’

I tell my father I am thirsty and he beckons me to drink.

Bedazzling water, oh, how dark your swagger!

I feel the bond of thirst with the begotten thing that died

At times outlawed by canon and by customs.

What is a heart? I’m hungry! I’d like to live and would…

You, virgin-deer forgive me, my creature of the wood.

I’m weary. How do the flames soar high! The woods seem deep!

I weep. What does my father think? I eat and weep. I eat!

Translated by Andreea Călugăriţă