Ana Blandiana: Soot (poem in Engish)

Soot

What do you think when you see
An archangel covered with soot?
You think of pollution in space, of
And of what else?
Of the angel’s custom
course.
Of poking their noses into everything.
And of what else?
Of stoves,
Which start to smoke in the spring.
And what else?
Oh, if I really think hard,
It might be an archangel
Who set himself on fire
Forgetting that
He could not be burnt.

Translated by Crisula Ştefănescu and Inta Moruss-Wiest
(source: Vilenica Almanac 2002)