On Zeno’s footsteps

Translation by George ANCA

Translator's Note

 „She wants to detonate the selfishness around” (Adrian Dinu Rachieru), „silence will not restrain her soul” (Eleonora Schipor), „lyrics become her universe and salvation” (Nina Ceranu). Not excepting romantic erotic statements, the poems of Marianei Gurza (with roots in Bucovina, born in Banat, mother of children), have almost always lengyh of Lord's Prayer. Translator listened, concomitantly, also songs by Frank Sinatra, choosing only few quasi-mystical recalls written over the years and published in volumes: Paradox sentimental / Sentimental Paradox, Ed. Augusta, 1998; Gânduri nocturne / Night thoughts, Ed. Augusta, 1999; Nevoia de a sfida tacerea / Need to defy silence, Ed. Augusta, 2000, Lumini şi umbre / Lights and shadows, Ed.Augusta, 2001; Lacrima iubirii / Tears of love, Ed. Artpress, 2003, Ultimul strigăt / Last cry, Eubeea, 2006.

George Anca

Foreword 

The title of anthology suggests that it is question of recreation of an ancient unconventional Greek style which encapsulates us into the myth of Zeno from Eleea (490 – 430 BC) and in original, subtle, profound and old fashioned manner, the author proposes to our delight a collection of lyrical feelings and transmutations. This collection has thirty five chosen poems. Brilliantly crafted, poems of Mariana Gurza are perceptive to natural landscape and fundamental questions of life and death. This volume offers Romanian original text and its homologue in English on opposite pages. Translation of George Anca surprises with hawk eye the splendor of original, transmits with mastery poetical beauty and used rhythm, as well as complexity of language depth of author Mariana Gurza. A profound love poetry... sensual, musical and delicate.

 Ben Todica

I LOOK TO THE SKY

Born again,

Here I am!

I went through an ugly dream forks.

Unknown by anyone,

I encircled in my mute grief.

Yet now, o Lord, I am delighted

with your gift of new life,

for laughing, weeping,

fighting, living,

like rocks in their immobility.

THE HEAVEN WEEPS IN MY HEART

I thought that disguising myself

as light,

as despair,

I would lull to sleep your imagination.

I succeeded

to glimmer my angel

lost from me,

searching for me

in my gesture

of humility.

TELL ME WHO I AM

I thought you know

who I am.

I thought I was

equally

shadow and being.

Til I realized

that in time mirror

I was not more than

a cry,

a peal of laughter,

a white dress,

a candle flame,

a red egg,

a piece of wafer,

an eye of light.

FLIGHT AMIDST CLOUDS

It came as if I was a bird in flight.

Which one in the God’s

counting?

Which one returned by wind?

I should be

recognized

after my wild prattle,

after nests hidden

in hourglass

of the time tax collector.

I WEEP IN THE TRESHOLD OF NIGHT

In the garden of my soul

a singing bird made her nest.

It has something of prayer,

of call,

in her dialogue

with jasmine,

with wind,

with thought...

She laid her blue egg

in the false golden orbit,

and her song cleared

like my sight

after the first rain of tears.

ENIGMATIC IS ALL

The words sit strangely

between life and another world.

Abyss? Be it as far as possible!

To read about it in books!

Now we are here, in the picture

with white winter,

tomorrow we will be in green-green.

Of course apricot trees will as well bloom,

will ripen,

also the fields will bear fruit

as every year.

We will be here to collect them.

Even pains, transient,

will remain alone.

OBSTINACY

Do not look back,

nothing is to be seen.

It’s me,

a blue shadow

gliding slowly

on already wedded alleys.

Do not listen,

it is my thought

ground by a green love.

You will never hear

my whispers

metamorphosed in golden grain.

Do not look in my eyes:

you will see only the night blindness.

So... I’ll lose myself in labyrinths,

pining after your embrace.

YOU AMAZE ME, FRIEND

with your desire to walk

on traces of the saints

to return toward self.

But you don’t talk to me

about pilgrims splashed

with mud.

In your interior world

you have an answer,

as I also have it

in gloomy days

when everything seems

to slip out of my hands.

PICTURE INFINITY

You had ended the book of “war”

thus I printed you in my heart,

like a star

under your thought light

good to cure wound of child

that you remained.

Tell me what have you seen

in other life?

Did you succeed to count the stars,

to adorn yourself

with presented gem?

Or did you kept only image

of the infinity?

SEARCH FOR SEALF

The memory is mimosa pudica

today it opens with abnegation,

tomorrow is emptied by senses.

At each touching

man hauls inside

searching for self

in the first trace on clay

kept in palm by God.

Kneeling conceited,

at his feet:

the earthling.

I AM AFRAID FOR YOU, SON

Before being you,

son,

it was me,

it was the luminous

longing singing words,

luminously singing in my soul.

And you came,

like a gallop of green green...

Therefore, this spring,

pin it, my dear, to the lapel

and show it to the tomorrow,

when those

with traveled horses

will come to the halt

of men.

GREEN TIMES

One evening

mother forgot

outside the sack with salt

the morning was a salt see.

Father left his scythe

on edge of this sea

and it rusted...

First child born

that evening

had his skin tanned...

It was the first sign

that time for pray arrived,

to stop for a while

and lay it near us

heating it like

the abandoned child.

TO WEAR IT MYSELF

For second act

now within writing

you intend to become

the grain of sand

remained on time sole

which I carry

myself

every day

every season.

POEM IN WHITE VERSE

Sign that poetry lives

is the white verse

which cheated the rhyme.

From here the poetry starts

from this photograph

I left

at your hand

with some oblique lines

out of a manuscript

from which,

dear friend,

you torn a page,

you burnt it in a cigarette,

before getting cured

of me.

LONGING

Toward His world

all bridges have been raised.

I had to give toll

also to the time,

to healing icons,

to last horse

which has broken the bit.

Hot in my hand,

the last penny

remained

like a song on lips

when one is surprised

by perfect likeness

with one from the dream

YOUR PAIN HURTS ME

To be not recognized by us,

grandfather’s latter disguise

was into Prince Charming.

He was the same,

with his wonder-horse,

eternity in front of him,

anterior lives backward,

other disguises.

In one he was like a saint.

Grandmother had crochet for him

a cap of pearls,

in other a bright halo.

Perhaps I met him

into a tale,

or I saw him

on some wall with graffiti,

and I wanted to be my grandfather.

HUMILITY

          (To my son Vlad)

I’m like a cloudy leaf

Fallen to your feet, Jesus.

Only prayers still give me power

After so much struggle and sorrow.

My beloved child is tried again now

And I can not stop the start;

I made a twin angel out of my tears

To stay with him as stroking.

I do not know if saints heard my prayers,

But I know that beyond the clouds

the saint and gentle sight

Watches and is among us.

SHOW

We wind in acrobatic circles,

Everyone wants to look more tenacious,

We know neither when to stop,

But we roll spectacularly.

Politics became a poem,

Rhyme is mostly paired,

Verse is full of promises and nostalgia,

Rhythm is alert and stanza already globalized.

DAD, I MISS YOU

I miss you, dad, so much I miss you,

and, God, hard is the split

and I didn’t know you’ll die

wishing you all the time alive.

I do not know if ever erred

and hardly want you forgive me

with reconciled heart I’d be

that you rest among the fair.

WHERE ARE YOU GRANDPA

Where are you grandpa, forgotten among strangers

thrown into a corner of ground,

did someone put to you a cross,

being Romanian,

or they have mocked you

and made you ash?

Stand up from the grave and say

what cloth is a cloth in the alienated country,

cry as to be heard by

Transylvania, Banat,

what Bucovina’s old the Kingdom would have got!

Why did they tortured you, poor Romanian,

and your soles were beaten,

without food, without water,

with head downward

Stand up and tell me

what did the stranger to you,

why are we removed again?

What saints are telling you in the depths,

how Chernovtsi is doing?

LONE UNEMPLOYED

It’s cold in house, his body frost,

empty of dreams and hopes,

lost,

an unemployed walks

with frozen tears.

It’s hard to go farther,

when pocket is missing

he warps again beautiful lies

thinking to what will he put on the table

of unreasonable children.

And looking again beseechingly to sky,

begging the mercy the Christian,

he would want a better life, an honest penny,

to beg no more in full churches.

Again his grant didn’t arrive,

the age doesn’t permit him to work

for see, Lord,

if one isn’t young

do not have any chance left.

From time to time a passer by

as sad as him

put in his hand a penny.

You humble unemployed start to cry

and run scared to light a candle;

for Lord, how well it’s among saints

when only them one can say what it hurts.

THE HOPE

I’d go to infinity

with a pagan song of longing,

and in trembling tears

I’d sow love;

I’d hung among stars

with hands of flowers

and I’d subdue a world,

a world full of errors.

INDIFFERENCE

Passer by,

look around you

and tell me what you see.

How look lin

ke the eyes of children,

of old people,

how much elegant are mothers,

our mothers?

What you feel seeing so much sadness,

what you feel when a poor child comes

and begs a penny for a roll?

I wonder what changed us

to become so indifferent

to those we see daily

shivering and distressed

by rapid going of the seasons.

MANIFESTO FOR LIFE

Let horses wander on the spread plains

Free in the crazy game of other days,

Without burdens and heavy chains

To feel how life is like.

Let flowers grow where it is green

And buds kept dewy up to dawn

to bear in the sun of green dreams

In this life full of errors.

Let my thought undefiled

scorching of love lost

Let my soul clean,

And dreams green...

UNCONSCIOUSNESS

Who will get limit of Unconsciousness

Now that we are at crossroads?

Who will answer for many poor

struggling and taking away my dear?

We are too little in the great fight,

that others do with abrupt start.

What will it happen with this land

When we are giving all at lend?

Nothing good left, everything rot?

Some desperately sell to unknown;

We stay with a smattering of corn

crying at Stephen the Great’s tomb.

Don’t we know land feathers

given in ages by forefathers?

Is for us better

with shakes together?

SENTIMENTAL PARADOX

Man learns in order to be wise;

the stupid cultivates vegetables of others

without understanding

which is the root

and by where the sap flows.

Poet writes only to be called

a poor scribe

at world’s court.

People love for they have

to love...

There is an unwritten law

which obliges us to love.

But as love became a relation

between supply and demand,

nobody is sufficiently rich

to buy the love...

OUR LANGUAGE

Our language, like petals of a rose,

I found it into a corner, thrown

At a theater wardrobe.

I shivered when I saw it;

Wilted,

Trampled

By dirty shoes

But with foreign labels.

Our language sings alone

And suffer

Hoping vitamins

Pure Romanian.

Our language remains saint

Because

Up there, in heaven,

Someone

Blessed it

Since the creation of the world.

LONGING MIRROR

I stand on a hidden shore,

you stay hidden in heights.

Between us -an ocean

will always broke us up.

Alone

I search for lost steps trace;

Clothed in waves

I look to infinity searching...

Hope runs

on a sunny mast,

and the song rests...

From lyrics I dared

to make harp for my thought

from tears

longing mirror.

ON ZENO’S FOOTSTEPS

I caught sadness in hands

and clothed it in tears.

I welcomed the smile

and I toasted wormwood wine

in cups of nostalgia.

I hung the longing in my locks

an gave color to the night,

then

I ran...

I was afraid.

I ran trembling

toward a vagrant candlestick

just like Zeno.

We surprised each other

wondering in the night

MUSIC LOVER

A music lover

writes with light strips

his thoughts,

sowing quietly

faith buds.

Waits a sunrise,

a sunset...

Song around,

a sad,

bitter

song;

and music lover waits.

Waits to sip

longing

from carafe of red wine

and to purify his face

into ephemeral mirrors.

ONLY WOMAN?

My soul

doesn’t differ at all

from your soul.

My heart can have

violet blue iridescence,

otherwise I don’t see

why my feet bleed

when you bring huge irises

and leave them too far from the day

in which love should revive.

I WAS BEAUTIFUL

I was beautiful

when waiting for you.

But it’s been a while

since we two

rocked

on two rainbows

after rain

washed my lips

of your kisses.

And yet my heart,

wrapped in your love,

has kept

the sacred seal

of your

loving touch,

there,

among clouds

colors,

lightnings

wasted by loves.

SAD BRANCHES

A branch beats in my window

like a desolate tear,

it doesn’t say anything to me,

only trembles

and I see it more and more wilted.

I open the window and feel

the drop world coldness;

I cry too,

I can not shut,

but I feel

I have nothing to say.

Clouds have been nesting at my breast,

it’s hard to warm them up,

they are cold,

and I feel my master is

only God in heaven.

On Zeno’s footsteps, Editura Timpolis, Timişoara, 2012

Translation by George ANCA

Echoes:

ON ZENO'S FOOTSTEPS

Any book presented to one by its author implies a special communication. One is supposed to be worth of sharing those written, to collaborate with his/her moods during reading. It is like an invitation to a secret colloquium. With each reader, the colloquial gesture enlarges and the world seems easier decipherable, one can find unexpected meanings and, why not, sometimes, it seems easier to be supported.

I am thus in possession of presented book. Poetess Mariana Gurza writes to me on first page, “with love and appreciation”. Appreciating with love, that is not from distance. One can thus pick up an elective affinity.

The book is an anthology, remarkably entitled “Pe urmele lui Zenon”/“On Zenon's footsteps”, Timpolis publishing house, 2012, translation by Dr. George Anca. As writer Ben Todica suggests in preface:”Mariana Gurza invites us to a journey in which she recreates intensively the depths and heights of human experience and makes us see how extraordinary our daily life is. The title of anthology suggests that it is question of recreation of an ancient unconventional Greek style which encapsulates us into the myth of Zeno from Eleea (490 – 430 BC) and in original, subtle, profound and old fashioned manner, the author proposes to our delight a collection of lyrical feelings and transmutations. This collection has thirty five chosen poems. Brilliantly crafted, poems of Mariana Gurza are perceptive to natural landscape and fundamental questions of life and death. This volume offers Romanian original text and its homologue in English on opposite pages. Translation of George Anca surprises with hawk eye the splendor of original, transmits with mastery poetical beauty and used rhythm, as well as complexity of language depth of author Mariana Gurza. A profound love poetry... sensual, musical and delicate.”.

Selection is descendant, from philosophical tone over human existence and condition, over relation with eternity and divinity, toward a touch of reality (see the poem on the unemployed). The note of translator includes references: Mariana Gurza „wants to detonate the selfishness around” (Adrian Dinu Rachieru), „silence will not restrain her soul” (Eleonora Schipor), „lyrics become her universe and salvation” (Nina Ceranu). Not excepting romantic erotic statements, the poems of Marianei Gurza (with roots in Bucovina, born in Banat, mother of children), have almost always lengyh of Lord's Prayer. Translator listened, concomitantly, also songs by Frank Sinatra, choosing only few quasi-mystical recalls written over the years and published in volumes: Paradox sentimental / Sentimental Paradox, Ed. Augusta, 1998; Gânduri nocturne / Night thoughts, Ed. Augusta, 1999; Nevoia de a sfida tacerea / Need to defy silence, Ed. Augusta, 2000, Lumini şi umbre / Lights and shadows, Ed.Augusta, 2001; Lacrima iubirii / Tears of love, Ed. Artpress, 2003, Ultimul strigăt / Last cry, Eubeea, 2006.

Any poem is round, clear in images, denoting both knowledge of word value but also exercise of literary writing.

The image of heaven, hell, of times, of sorrowful impact with undesired events, dedications full of affective fears, even the words “sit strangely / between life and another universe”.

The verse can be in case of this volume way of healing and hope, can be judge for soul, can be exemplary and humble seal if we refer to God.

Penetrating images are following us even after reading, “the clay handful / in palm of God”, the return always toward self, with discretion, in search of some secret meanings, propose to one to become “the grain sand / remained on time's sole / you will know / from that angle / what means the burden / I carry myself / everyday / every season”, p. 34.

A charming poem is dedicated to grandfather, disguised in an unreal, wonder space, having eternity face/back. Next to it is “Green times”, one of most beautiful poems: “one evening / mother forgotten / outside the sack with salt / the morning was a salty sea / Father left his scythe / on edge of this sea / and it got rusted... First child born that evening / had his skin tanned...” Further on there are living, feelings, self-denial, what is characterizing the author herself.

Veronica Balaj

Translation by George ANCA