I was always waiting on the park bridge
sitting on the wooden railing above the golden valley
and she used to come from above between the lime and alder trees
as if floating down to the valley in a mild mist
we were sitting on the bench beyond the creek
and I used to put my head on her left bosom
I could hear her heart beating
like a clock a bit imprecise
never less than ninety gongs per minute
in a medardus noon it rained cats and dogs
the lightning flashes fell one after the other
somewhere on the edge of the park
and when she arrived I ran
and we hugged under a huge lime
and when she was quiet, I listened to her heart
with an ear to the white blouse with blue flowers soaking wet
she was frightened like an angel with her frozen shoulders
and the clock beating two hundred per minute
later that same day it beat like that every night
when we stretched by one another
on the mattress directly on the floor
and I put my ear carefully under her breast
and the left palm on the round belly
like a quarter of a moon
and next to her heart another heart was
beating just as fast
a bud somewhere around the navel
now I sit and wait
like the wise man on the bank of the autumn river
the yellow tulips in the garden
are loaded with the last snow
and I hear her heart beating
under the fresh March sun
with a hundred peaks per minute
on the golden crowns bent into the dust
English Translation by Zorin Diaconescu