Astropoetica: Astrocantata, by Dominic Diamant

M57 Assaulted by the spectrum of the disasters,
humanity has been enriched with a new planet,
which, although so far,
stimulates hopes and dreams
that someday we shall go there.

Thus, people don't perish
destroyed by their own fatal scourges,
but have powers to find new refuges.

They have to believe in the Creator,
and that all would be fine
if they would not live vainly.

I lose myself in the world greatness,
Old astral floods play inside me,
Galactic combustions give birth to the infinite splendor
From tragic, living and ephemeral spaces

I feel the voluptuousness of fertile waves,
the light gently and maternally veils me,
I hear the magic of the high rustle,
I'm thirsty, and I greedily drink from the miracle

I feel my neurons blisteringly rattling,
oh, my molecules vibrate and sing,
the eternal enigmatic eon makes room in my reactions,
and I live pure, permanent and sacred pulsations.

English translation from the Romanian by Andrei Dorian Gheorghe

Romanian poet Dominic Diamant has studied commercial marine science, philology and accounting. He was named laureate for "philosophical cosmopoetry" at the Cosmopoetry Festival of the Romanian Society for Meteors and Astronomy-SARM.

Translator's Note: Adrian Bruno Sonka is a Romanian young astronomer who served for a while as the general secretary of the Romanian Society for Meteors and Astronomy-SARM. He was also the assistant of Dr. Harald Alexandrescu (1945-2005) and now continues his astronomical work as the new coordinator of "Admiral Vasile Urseanu" Municipal Observatory in Bucharest. In 2004 he received important awards from the European Southern Observatory for the Venus Transit Astrophotography of the Day, and from the American Association of Variable Star Observers for over 10,000 observations.