The Sick Angel Poem by Tudor Arghezi

My angel remembers
Joys of former times.
Sky reaches to his taste
With sour milk, sharp grapes.
It no longer sends stars
Painted like holy flags,
And the wind no longer spurs evening
With aromas of wine and oil.
Orchards, fields have lost their bloom,
Crops their color and leaves.
Beneath warm skies black waters
Carry bubbling asphalt sludge.
Wherever his head seeks to rest
That place is thorny and grass turns to nails.
Cranes cross heavens without him;
Their wings call to him no more.
His heart can no longer stand
The life of eternity, the ogive nest,
And little by little, for the first time,
He feels hideous in time's crumbling.
Unknown to him an earthly tumor
Has begun to sprout
On his white body.