Elena Popescu, Poland

Por: Elena Popescu
Traductor: Adrian G Sahlean, Theodor Damian  

Song of Love

Seated at the table of Silence,
In the unknown kingdom,
Poets break for us
fresh bread, sprinkled
with heavenly dew..

The dead go with the dead, they say – 
the living with the living!
But do we really know
who is dead,
and who is living?

Another Poet,
in the beyond...
One less Poet,
here.

Departing
for the silent kingdom,
the Poet leaves behind 
a song of Love
unknown...

                    Translated by Adrian G Sahlean

You never told me

You told me
Poetry
is like 
nothing ever before...
A miracle 
found
in the silent moment
lying hidden
in the common
fact.

You told me
Poetry
is Wonderment
hiding
despair
of not knowing 
to unravel the Mystery.

But you never told me
Poetry
calls you
Where
you can find 
the Question–Answer.

                  Translated by Adrian G Sahlean 

Pilgrim

I

I am only one of your winged thoughts
it was given to me only to travel through the ages
to live in faraway worlds, to die
and to continue my wandering god flight...

To be tempted by floating dreams
to believe in the spell of the Fata Morgana in the desert
and not to remember the mission you’ve given me
to choose always the error, to be unappeased

To forget my sacred source, and more and more
not to know to listen of the heart’s message
and to live the nightmare until the end: hatred
and death shall both be my signature,

To make useless war against other people
to gather restlessly huge fortunes
to have the selfishness as my main word
and between the people to consider the coward the first 

The faith I proclaim to be but pure chatter
though I teach it every day, not to believe a word of it,
to easily lie and twist the meanings
to want to dominate the entire humanity,

Not to understand that life is an unstained gift
to scatter uselessly the inherited talent
not to know what pity is, striking without mercy
in the fallen and peaceful one, the defenseless one,

And to repeat ceaselessly the initial error
on the road of deceit – the first step taken,
to avoid justice in acts and in words
to make with the ignorance a tremendous oath,

Not to be able to measure my senselessness, my fear,
not know what shame is, to be weak, traitor
to praise always by my petty acts
the falling in the power of the hypocrite ego...

II

One of my thoughts, indeed, with wings
Exiled by you in the world of phantasms
You are wandering unknowingly from place to place
If you only could come back, someday, triumphantly

If you could get loose from the dreams of deception
And remain steady on the way you choose
Step by step to discover the destiny I gave you
And decipher the mystery embedded in yourself

Also remember always clearer
The one who was with you in your solitary journey
Make room for love and hold it in your heart
And defend the life of those who resurrected from the death

I wish you could see in all things the one who created them
And know that the richness does not belong to the rich
That the universe itself exists through love:
To be able to forgive the enemy is written in your nature.

Your faith will grow always bigger
When you will accept the only trial
To find the truth: to be or not to be?
Then you will become your own master

You will know then that life is with no end
And that the whole inheritance you think you wasted
Is waiting for you thousand fold, you its destined master
When the center of your mind will be infinite

You will search for the beginning and will not find it anymore
In the last jump that you could think of
Towards your native country, in the most modest garment
Purified and free from any binding.

There where there is no way for evil to arrive
Only harmony in all things that are one surfaces
The word, deed, thought are speaking themselves in you
They give you the news of what whole freedom is.

                   Translated by Theodor Damian

Tell me
 

              To my husband, Nicolae   
 
You never believed
you could win by
giving up weapons,
and would find your freedom
only by fighting your own image.

You will no longer look at yourself
in mirrors that show you
weak or arrogant,
brave or coward,
when you wish it…
 
You heard that before
but never believed it…

What can your image be
in a mirror-less country?
You will ask yourself, 
again, and will find out 
only if you let the answer
come by itself.

What can you lose
when the only possible reality 
is your quest?
 
Which way to go—
the traveler asks,
unaware it is the only road 
to follow...
 
And where to go
if he is already there—
even if he doesn’t know yet
who will win...
 
What competition is more feared
than when you are 
the only stubborn player?

But how can you keep fighting
when your opponent wears only 
your image
as his lucky charm?

“Abandon all hope” you were told—
so you really can hope!
But tell me, what good is hope 
for one who has everything,
or knows the way back
when he has already arrived? 

                   Translated by Adrian G Sahlean  

 
I haven’t told you until today

I haven’t told you until today
that days pass by, 
without telling me the story
of their little daily happenings,
that the seas, all of them, returned to the ocean
and their drained bed cries quietly
for the vanished vivacity of the waves,
that deep sorrow has no more words
and the memories
can never be lived the same way,
that life is and is not 
what it seemed to be then,
or that in a tomorrow lost somewhere in the past,
I saw dust covering everything,
forgiveness and hate equally,
that the aspiration for that which is better 
is impregnated with the finest 
possible ballast,
a burden carefully hidden somewhere,
in the memory folds of that being
which is more and more unfamiliar,
that forgetfulness does not exist 
and neither does farness, 
except maybe 
for our everyday dreams,
where we retreat so many times,
so we may return, sometimes,
to our forever dream, there
where we rest every time
so that we may return someday…

I haven’t told you until today
that the river prepares its bed
for the return home
from its countless adventures,
and the creatures that it sheltered 
temporarily run helpless,
not knowing that their life 
will signify from now on
something that would scare them to death,
in their limited understanding,
the abyssal mud
is prepared like never before
to accept the new forms of suffering
as a mean of aspiring to knowledge,
that everything is harder than ever
to endure here, where everything
seems to be different each time,
to the one that is not able to see
more than what can be seen,
that the boundlessness can be encompassed
by the very last thought,
that might become the first,
once in a lifetime,
or that the point can be 
so spacious, as to contain 
the whole immensity of distinct forms,
whose unknown qualities
intertwine into an identity,
in their everlasting essence,
that the road is a way and a goal all over
where there is movement and creation,
thought and hope, betrayal and gratitude,
that the whole being 
is always prepared for journey, 
to reach the point
from where it can leave no more,
without suffering the greatest disappointment,
of the one that knows…

I have not told you that the season
metamorphoses with every moment,
according to a law undiscovered
by the omniscient scientists,
to keep up with the changes
produced by unchanged mentalities,
or that the verities 
are as dangerous 
as the lies
when one insists in proving them
or in denying their existence,
that never can mean
later, some another time, or now,
in a world subject to change,
yet motionless,
in its impenetrable depths,
that time is nothing else but 
the most fearful face
of the unknown, worshipped
in the human endeavor
to overcome the boundaries of the invisible illusion... 

        Translated by Luminita Suse
 

She was born in Turnu Măgurele, Romania, in 1948, she is a Doctor in Mathematics and Professor at the University of Bucharest, Romania. She is poet, translator and editor, member of the Writers’ Union of Romania. She has published more than forty books, of poetry and translations from English, French and Spanish, both in Romania and abroad.

Among her books are: Tie (To You, 1994); Cânt de Iubire – Song of Love (1999; 2007); Peregrino (Pilgrim, Spain, 2004); Himno a La Existencia (Hymn to Existence, Mexico, 2006); 愛之頌 (Chinese version of Song of Love, Taiwan, 2006, second revised bilingual edition in English and Chinese, Taiwan, 2010); Cât de aproape … – Lo cerca que estabas… (How close…, 2007); Unde esti, Timp? (Time, where are you?, 2007); Poems (Romanian and Urdu, Pakistan, 2008); Peregrino (Pilgrim, Brazil, 2009); Dacă (the poem If, in Romanian and 42 different language versions, 2009); Song of Love, bilingual edition with English translation by Adrian George Sahlean, and Chinese by Lee Kuei-shien (Taiwan, 2010); Hymn to the Life (Taiwan, 2011); Além do azul – Dincolo de azur (Beyond to azure), bilingual edition, Portuguese and Romanian (Smile, Brazilia, 2012) (with Luciano Maia); Trei poeme din Europa – Three Poems from Europe (Pelerin Press, Bucharest, 2013); Cânt de Iubire – Song of Love – Chanson d’Amour, (Pelerin Press, Bucharest, România & Destine Literare Press, Montreal, Canada, 2013), trilingual volume (Romanian, English and French).

Published on 10.08.2021