The workers
(Punëtorët)

They are constantly entering poems,
            day and night.
They do not wait for the heavy gates to be opened
By intellectual love, by refined, delicate thinking.
They enter poems as they enter factories, plants,
Full of energy,
            noise and passion.
They ring the sirens, turn on the motors, begin work.
The facade of the poem resounds with drills, with lathes.
The grey, metallic air shudders with the vibrations.
They mount the scaffolding,
            the verses.
With a soldering-tool in hand they solder
iron and rhythms and tender rimes,
They test the calibres and the strength
Of our thoughts
            and of our loves.