what my anxious heart told me.

I saved this poem by Ileana Mălăncioiu over 10 years ago:

My Sister, The Empress 

My sister, the empress

became cross with us

she took her crowns and went away

but mother and father believe 

that she'll come back some day.

She is sure to come back, says father

why, how could anyone 

from one kingdom to another go

with only her slippers on.

But mother has a woman's heart

she says it wouldn't be right 

for her daughter to wear a crown and slippers

out in broad daylight.

She'll come tonight, says mother

she'll come tomorrow, says father

I alone know that my sister is gone

forever.

I have seen the place where she has passed

strewn with the seven crowns

so her parents wouldn't be aware

and I tracked down her slippers

in that other kingdom there.

 Today, as I was researching Mălăncioiu's poetry online, I found several translations of poetry from her book, "My Sister Beyond."  It was written during the time her younger sister was dying of cancer.  I'm posting everything I found because these poems are perfect.

It Was Then I Understood

It was then I understood you were all alone
in the dull gray earth,
I myself stood at your head as if
at the other end of the world.

The priest sang the usual mass
the cantors murmured their part too
I watched the earth fall on you in clods
and wondered why I wasn't dying myself.

Father was crying, but lived on,
mother's tears were all dry,
you children didn't know how to mourn yet
and the wind knew not over what it blew.

It swayed the wooden cross on which
it was written you were gone before you were 33
with the same peace it rocked
the grove of trees in bloom.

I remember it well, you were alone,
in the dull grey earth
I myself stood at your head as if
at the other end of the world.


You Sang Out of Tune

Audacious and ignoring the tune you sang
world, world, sister world
and every thing that passed your face
you called by name.

Friends came in turn
mother and father
the priest and a lighted candle
a hoe a shovel.

After this endless misery
from which there's no escape
someone asked our mother
how much pepper to add to the food.

We made pound cakes and cabbage rolls
filled with spiced meat and toasted
with wine your proper departure
and our forgetfulness.

If only I could somehow have helped
chopped greens or just
let myself be chopped
with that sharp chopping knife.


Often I Remember

Often I remember
that gray stone bench
where grandfather sat
where my hands dropped you
where we were children.

I couldn't tell anyone
I watched your head three days
it turned over
it seemed more flat
than other children's heads.

Nothing can hurt you now
you have a grownup head
on which they cut the hair to make it grow
thicker but it wouldn't, your eyes instead
grew into your forehead to see the way.

Your child's head grown large
haunts me from that old bench
of mill-stones.
God, why did you let me drop her
from my arms a second time?


My Sister Beyond

My sister beyond
keeps her head bent
near the horse shot dead
frail and bony
his saddle falls.

I can't stay longer
on that bony back ,
I fell
waving a dry branch
even before I crossed
the fatal boundary.

Let your soul stay
near me
like the saddle I mount
and then dismount in spring
when the grass
of the neglected garden greens.

Silently the horse collects
his scattered skeleton
leaving only his spirit
on the other shore
she mounts his saddle
in her velvet dress
he shows her how to hold her seat.

Night comes to the garden
full of strange horse-breathing
that struggles to continue
even when the sun shines.

I hear his hooves tramp
his nostrils snort
as they snorted in times past.
I find the trace
of his wet rolling
where the grass is greenest.

The grass springs back
the trace vanishes
my sister rides the horse
across the plain
and drinks the water of life.

Meekly I approach
the deserted fountain
a broken balance
this is the place
for the midnight struggle.

My sister is beyond
I see her leave
on her magic horse
that was shot one year ago.


I Watch It Rain

Through a cloudy window I watch it rain
a thousand tiny ripples in the roadside swamp
it doesn't stop, the earth swirls with water
oh, dear God, rain falls on my sister
she can’t escape.

She can’t escape? I hear a voice —
she has escaped for good
all bad and changing weather
don't be afraid, she's fine —
but meekly I pray for sun.

You know, she's very sensitive, I say
and watch uneasily the gray earth,
the rain’s patter on the swamp;
she’ll catch cold,
she always caught colds easily.