“We have time”, a poem by Octavian Paler

Octavian Paler is one of my most beloved Romanian poets and writers. I studied and became familiar with his work during high school. There are many books and poems of him that I like, but this poem in particular struck a chord with me. I hope you like it as much as I do.

Source for the translation found here (thank you, Cristina, for the translation)

We have time for everything
Sleep, run back and forth,
regret we made an error and err again
judge others and absolve ourselves,
we have time to read and write,
edit what we wrote, regret what we wrote,
we have time to make projects and never follow through
we have time to dwell in illusions and stir through
their ashes much later.

We have time for ambitions and diseases,
to blame destiny and details,
we have time to look at the clouds, at the ads, or some random accident, we have time
to chase away our questions, postpone our answers, we have time
to crush a dream and reinvent it, we have time to make friends,
to lose them, we have time to take lessons and forget them
soon after, we have time to receive gifts and not understand them. We have time for everything.

No time, though, for a little tenderness.
When we’re about to do that, too, we die.

Octavian Paler “We have time”

Photo taken in the backyard of my grandmother’s, a couple of summer’s ago.