On the 31st of March in 1933, the world was blessed with the birth of a truly great poet – Nichita Stanescu. To remember him, we invite you to share these poems with your students. Nichita sounds wonderful in English, too.   A Poem Tell me, if I ever caught you and kissed the arch of your foot, wouldn’t you limp a little after that for fear of crushing my kiss?…   Autumn Love Autumn is here, cover my heart with something, the shadow of a tree, or better, the shadow of you. Sometimes I’m afraid I will see you no more, that my sharp wings might grow up to the clouds, that you’ll hide within an odd eye, and it will shut under a wormwood leaf. Then I step toward the rocks and fall silent, I pick words up and drown them in the ocean. I whistle the moon to rise and make it into a great emotion.

From Wheel With a Single Spoke and Other Poems

by Nichita Stanescu

Translated from Romanian by Sean Cotter