THE FIRST ASTROFOLK SONGS OF DAN MITRUT

Between 1997 and 2000, Dan Mitrut composed a memorable series of songs
on astronomical themes,
becoming the creator of astrofolk music in Romania.
He performed them at SARM’s Perseid event and Cosmopoetry Festival,
and gave top recitals at two international astronomical super-events,
also organized by SARM:
-EuRoEclipse Perseids 1999;
-International Meteor (Organization) Conference 2000
(where he became the founder of… meteor folk music).
Dan Mitrut’s lyrics for some of those astrofolk songs are presented below
in the English translation of Andrei Dorian Gheorghe.

Dan Mitrut during an astrofolk music recital,
“Admiral Vasile Urseanu” Bucharest Municipal Observatory
Photo: Calin Niculae

RAIN OF STARS

It’s raining stars, young slave.
It’s raining stars over the blind Earth.
It’s raining stars bathed in milk.
Chains of night rattle in the sky.

Maybe it’s nighttime, maybe it’s daytime,
clusters of late golden evening stars,
a blue night with a magic Moon
rises.
Maybe there are mysteries in the broken sky
for which we cannot find words,
maybe it’s a meteoric, clear destiny
from the Sun.

You look for the light without spots
through thousands of unripe stars and spaces,
oh, your resolute eyes, young slave.
It’s raining stars bathed in whispers
over the blind and waste Earth.

Maybe it’s nighttime, maybe it’s daytime,
clusters of late golden evening stars,
a blue night with a magic Moon
rises.
Maybe there are mysteries in the broken sky
for which we cannot find words,
maybe it’s a meteoric, sublime destiny
from the Sun.

ON THE CORNER OF A STAR

There are so many travellers watching the skies…
The road is hard, the weather is bad, the Sun is lonely.
The starry longing still asks for looks,
and I have remained alone in time to sing on the corner of a star.

We have crazily lost all the gold of the years,
we have lost our youth through diaphanous stars,
we have climbed galaxies of flowers and snow,
and I have remained alone in time to sing on the corner of a star.

Now I’m uselessly trying, because the stars speak
if the road is good and right.
Now, stories still come from distances to us
not to shout: desert on the corner of a star!

Photo: Dan Mitrut

READER IN STARS

Oh you great moon, what a wonder,
The shadow of a god is in your eye.
Choose the big way,
And we’ll always be on your trails.

The longing is compliant, the high moon is magic
For I am the readers in stars.
Stars logo-stars, destinies are in them,
He who does not believe it, should rove like them.

From the sky to the earth,
Torches sing with impenetrable voices.
We watch them, but do not know
How many thoughts they haunt.

The longing is compliant, the high moon is magic
For I am the readers in stars.
Stars logo-stars, destinies are in them,
He who does not believe it, should sing like them.

Maybe tomorrow we shall fly to another star
And then you will certainly look for me.

The longing is compliant, the high moon is magic
For I am the readers in stars.
Stars logo-stars, destinies are in them,
He who does not believe it, should rove like them.

BALLAD OF AN APERIODIC COMET

Heart of ice,
Return to life again,
Give me back the wonder that I lost,
My way and the longing for Earth.
The worlds in the heights
Tempted me with their whispers,
You stunned me with the flight
In the chaotic Cosmos
And put a seal on my destiny
To remain so,
A traveller on the drop of a star.

Heart returned
On a burnt orbit,
Light-years without a word,
I forgot to caress and to sing,
This price is too high
For your life,
I’m a child too old
For such walks,
Remember your perihelion
Towards my planet,
A traveller on the drop of a star.

Crazy heart,
I miss the moon,
I miss the full moon
Over the top of a hill,
Over the shadows
Of the orchard
In the evening wave.
The living Earth
Screams in me
And I cannot forget it,
A traveller on the drop of a star.

Remember your road back
And remain always in our sky.

Immortality… is not for us.

PLANETS

There are planets where the grass grows green,
The dew sings in rainbows,
The thought blooms to the east,
And it is peace…

There are planets where the shadows ache,
Memories of past lives,
And silence freezes in the dust,
Lightened by the Sun…

Moments pass like magic over the zenith,
Moments come and whisper
Memories about the past.

There are planets where dreams flow
In cascades without senses.
Who knows what nests forgotten by longing
Return to life…

Moments pass like magic over the zenith,
Moments come and whisper
Memories about the past.

Photo: Dan Mitrut

METEOR, DESTINY OF FLIGHT

Stone with the taste of an evening star
Waiting for your fall,
The sky is still rusty,
Shaking among the pine trees.
Look for your place and sign,
Look for your amazed sight
To drink the ether,
To count your brothers.

From abysses,
From other worlds,
Without wings,
The jump is easy,
Meteor,
Destiny of flight.
Thousands of stars around you
Will dare to follow your way,
Meteor,
Flying blaze,
Jewel,
Ephemeral beacon.

Stone with the taste of a second,
Soul floating fabulously,
This blue night is
A story and a wave.
Give a border to your radiant,
Give us a sign
In ciphers and lights,
The portion of the sublime.

From abysses,
From other worlds,
Without wings,
The jump is easy,
Meteor,
Destiny of flight…

CAROL OF A LUNAR COSMONAUT

In Mare Nubium
Clouds forgotten by the sky and world are coming
And begin to snow whitely and densely
Over wild, amazed and anonymous rocks.

It’s snowing on the Moon,
It’s snowing like in a dream,
It’s snowing on the Moon…
The way towards the Earth is closed!

The snow is falling like a swing.
I remember, weeping, about my old house,
And the longing surges me
Because tens of years ago I left my home
Like a consigned to oblivion.

Now, as a captive in a costume,
I’d like to caress a timid flake,
While the cosmic capsule,
Rusty among craters and snowdrifts,
Is freezing, killed by the frost.

It’s snowing on the Moon,
It’s snowing like in a dream,
It’s snowing on the Moon…
The way towards the Earth is closed!

It’s a long time since I don’t know anything
About my dears.
Maybe the Earth incidentally died
And the winter has come here
With sledges and pine trees as for a holiday.

Here, hallucinating specters
Are everywhere,
And near my porthole,
Silence hums a carol
Of good night.

It’s snowing on the Moon,
It’s snowing like in a dream,
It’s snowing on the Moon…
The way towards the Earth is closed!