Maria Lerinska

Poetry

Panta Rhei

You arrive like water from a spring,
cleaned by layers of rock and time,
so I greet the world in rousing rhyme
to find a cure for all my pain.

To search out and spot the spark of good
In the eyes of cold humanity,
to discover in the darkest wood
the shining path so far away.

To perceive life like the sage so deep,
that everything comes and everything passes,
and like a carefree cicada sleep
fallen silent midst the harvest grasses.

To be able to shout, that I’ve lived through
to face death like a short straw drawn,
and to roam the eternal paths with you
in the steps of the sun soaked poem.

 

Life’s wheel

Does it bother you,
that tomorrow we’ll disappear,
that our footprints will melt
as the morning melts the stars
in the flame of the sun’s highway?

Does it bother you?
The stars will return
to fire up the night with their light,
but we’ll never return
‘midst this passing earthly beauty.
Every morning heaven will wash
her eyes in eternity’s crystal stream,
flowers will flower and flower again,
nodding out their last over their seeds,
and we grow and age
and are born again for the millionth time
in the astonished gaze of a child
who enters the world with a shout.
I’m not bothered by the fearful truth
about  life’s giddy ferris wheel,
of night and day, of joy and pain,
I love this difficult patchwork world,
the joke of fleeting life,
the indiscernible charm of Spring,
the unquenchable fervor of Summer,

the falling sighs of Autumn….

I’m not bothered!

 

Is it you?

Is it you? This fatal and loyal friend
Who awakens repose as sleepless night advances
Are you my Lucifer, God’s envoy sent
So we ford the rapids of life’s restless river?

Is it you? Or is everything a worldly machination?
Before my eyes falls a swift fleet mirage.
Is it you? Or you put on the latest drama
And my soul remains my only certain guard.

If I knew it was you!  Seized by love and unease
I’d find the key to a thousand secret doors,
We’d gain the gate to the fortress of ghostly treasures,
We’d reach the spot where burn eternal fires.

I don’t grasp who you are or what hold you have over me,
The conquering sense of yearning shines through.
Master or beggar,  my heart in cherished frenzy
Peak or abyss – like a lunatic I make for you.