Death Is Nothing at All

Nu mai ştiu de la cine a primit Uca poezioara asta în 1992, după moartea lui Dănuţ al ei, dar a devenit sfîntă pentru ea, o recita ca pe-o rugăciune. Şi aşa a şi trăit, for an interval.

Death is nothing at all.

I have only slipped away to the next room.
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other,
That, we still are.

Call me by my old familiar name.
Speak to me in the easy way
which you always used.
Put no difference in your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me. Pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word
that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effect.
Without the trace of a shadow in it.

Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same that it ever was.
There is absolute unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind
because I am out of sight?

I am but waiting for you.
For an interval.
Somewhere. Very near.
Just around the corner.

All is well

(Henry Scott-Holland, 1847-1918, Canon of St Paul's Cathedral)

Toate-s vechi şi nouă toate

“La vremea cînd Prier cu dulci şiroaie

Pînă-n rărunchi pămîntul îl înmoaie

Şi scaldă tot ce-i lujer în licoarea

Din care prinde vlagă nouă floarea;

Cînd şi Zefir cu-nmiresmata-i boare

A-nsufleţit prin crînguri şi ponoare

Mlădiţe moi, iar soarele-l petrece

În ultima lui goană pe Berbece;

Cînd păsări nalţă cîntec în desiş,

Iar noaptea dorm cu ochii mari deschişi

- De-atît fior li-i inima năucă -

Atuncea prind hagiii dor de ducă,”

Geoffrey Chaucer, Povestirile din Canterbury, Prolog,

traducere de Dan Duţescu

Şi, mai jos, originalul, Canterbury Tales, o mie trei sute-toamna, ca să înţelegeţi ce bunic am avut eu.

"Whan that aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of march hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
Tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the ram his halve cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(so priketh hem nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,(...)"