Between people’s
ideals
and their realization
there is always
a greater drop
than in the highest
of waterfalls.
This potential gradient
can be exploited
rationally,
if we build a sort of
power station above it.
The energy it supplies,
even if we use it only
to light our cigarettes,
is something
anyway;
for while one is smoking
one can very seriously
think up
ideals even crazier.
Notes
Translated by Michael Hamburger
“Perpetuum Mobile” from Selected Poems by Marin Sorescu, translated by Michael Hamburger. Published in 1983 by Bloodaxe Books.
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