Author: carmenbugan

Fra i tulipani

Scrive dalla casa dei miei nonni,
la figlia si affaccia con la piccola
per vedere i tulipani, quasi mille,
già cresciuti, prossimi a dischiudersi.

Dice che la bimba vedendo i fiori ride
e nomina i colori, ma non vuole portarla
per mano nel giardino.
Dice che nessuno
li comprerà questa Pasqua, e saranno
senza fiori anche i funerali.

La morte intorno a lui non è castigo.
Dio gli regala caldo sole e fiori,
gli alberi adorni di gemme, i passeri
che in questa stagione hanno tanti messaggi
da portare sulle ali, dall’una all’altra bara.

*

Lo immagino, ritto fra i tulipani, contare
le grida degli uccelli più alte
che in ogni altro anno di cui abbia memoria,
mentre il dolce bagliore rosso giallo e rosato dei petali
gli sfiora le mani con il falso conforto
che anche questo avrà fine.

Settimana Santa, 2020

Translation of “Sitting among the tulips” into Italian by Matteo Veronesi

 

Sitting among the tulips

 

He writes from my grandparents’ house,

His daughter brings her toddler by the front gate

To see the tulips, about one thousand,

Fully grown and ready to unfold.

 

He says the girl giggles at the sight of flowers,

Names colors, but won’t go into the garden

And he won’t hold her. He says no one will buy

This Easter, even funerals forego the flowers.

 

Death all around him is no punishment for sins:

Oh, no. God delivers him warm sunshine and flowers,

Budding trees, the sparrows that have so much talk to do

This season, flying from one coffin to the other.

 

*

 

I imagine him standing among tulips, taking note,

Birdsong louder than any he can recall; a glow

Of pink, red, and yellow petals touch his hands

With false reassurance that this too shall pass.

 

 

 

Holy Week, 2020

 

 

 

The Coronavirus pandemic underscores the traits that define today’s society: pride, greed, and arrogance. We live in a world-village built of instant international travel and interdependent trade. The Western society is driven almost exclusively by economics sustained by an unquenchable thirst for power. The fight to dominate, to be the superstar, has precipitated nations into immoral wars, and has created a pernicious culture of celebrity and materialism. Though there are those who warn and offer certain solutions, the predominant discourse does not leave much space for the voice of reason. As a result, no one has been paying attention to something as fundamental as the health of our species. The current pandemic holds one of the most terrifying mirrors to our nature.

Europe and America could have prepared medical equipment and logistics for quarantine since December, when the worries about the virus were reported in China. Not only complacency, but the heavy, morbid preoccupation with profit/money have led to hundreds of victims now stored in trucks on the New York City streets, stadiums and parking spaces in Spain and Italy. We discovered our incompetence faster than we could count the sick and the dead. The way people abuse language has a lot to do with it, I think: the endless spins, the shiny, fake politicians’ news conferences, where they provided false reassurance, have led to confusion among the general public. This confusion turned to several things: panic buying and overcrowding the stores by the hoarders; parties on beaches and parks by those who saw no threat in the news; rampant gun-buying by those who could not discern greed and panic-inducing language coming from the National Rifle Association; and a deep sense of powerlessness for the rest. People don’t know any more when and how they are being manipulated.

For me, this triggers bad memories. I know this combination of confusing language by heart: it defined my childhood in Ceausecu’s Romania. We were taught to look at empty shelves and say they were full. We listened to the dictator proclaim that we were the most advanced, best nation in the world, and we had to repeat this until we believed it was true. Moral well-being was created at the Party Headquarters. At the risk of sounding extremely simplistic, I am tempted to say the main difference between then and now is that now the tyrant is capitalist greed and the voice of reason is happily ignored. Of course, the other difference is that expressing any criticism at that time, in that place, led to incarceration, humiliation, and often death, while here and now people are free to speak their mind without fearing persecution. There is still something to be grateful for.

Many will die, too many. I fear that no lesson will be learned. The spin doctors are making money off shocking news, many politicians manipulate reality for personal profit, the educational system has failed to teach young people to read text and subtext, and the simple relationship between words in a sentence. Many of those who are the “custodians of language” (writers and poets) can’t look beyond the personal dramas of their bedrooms. If they look outside the front door, they engage in moral grandstanding and sermonizing.

My father always has said that we owe the world only one thing, and that is our life. He has chosen to risk his for a correct understanding of freedom, which is the right of every human being to enjoy the respect of others, to voice an opinion, and participate, even in a small way, in common governance. Now he watches depressed how the free world has gagged itself.  I remember my grandmother saying that she was happy to die peacefully in old age, with the whole village walking her to the cemetery in an open coffin full of flowers, with the cross between her palms, with the choir, the priest, and incense at her side. She could not have known that I will live to see a time when the old leave the house in an ambulance and are disposed of as toxic biological waste. So many people are dying around us now that those who will survive this thing completely healthy, will offer their children a legacy of a broken world, where trust and truth will remain things of the past. As a poet, I will continue to do my best to comfort whoever will be able to take comfort from words that search for a glimmer of hope. As a citizen of a struggling world, I grieve with everyone who watches family, neighbors, and friends leaving in an ambulance, never to return. Like many others, I stand between bitterness and hope.

 

Boy playing the cello

for Stefano

 

The chair he sits on is two hundred years old;

It modulates like the voice of his grandfather

 

Welcoming him to sit on his lap.

He straightens his back holding the cello

 

As if they’re old friends. The two are about the same size.

This tree was chosen to make a different kind of music

 

From that of rain and wind that fell on its leaves,

Or from the dry wood-pecker knock, the scratching

 

Claws of squirrels up and down its bark, branches and twigs,

The song of cardinals, robins and blue jays darting back and forth.

 

The boy holds the cello in his arms. His eyes are full of music,

Dreamy with notes about to happen, and the bow lies near

 

Like a promise of a journey. When he begins to play,

I think the heart of the tree gladdens in the dry,

 

Sunny house, giving into memories that long for summer

Thunderstorms, dawn choruses, in a low, echoing sound.

 

The wood, transformed, returns to its essence,

As the boy brings the marvelous into the house.

 

(from Lilies from America, Shearsman Books, 2019)

 

 

Letter from New York

 

My dear Jane, here the morgues are full.

Our dead have become a logistical nightmare.

Churches closed their doors. Priests offer

Virtual prayers to those who can access the ether.

 

This morning I am thinking about virtual prayers.

You say there in London you relive your childhood,

World War Two: shortages, community gathering in,

Exchanging words of encouragement.

 

But here in New York the sick line up along

The avenues, coughing, waiting for the hospitals

Where doctors without protective gear

Must tend to them, no matter what.

 

One spent 17,000 US dollars on masks

Bought from the black market, the price

Marked up 800 times. In one day he sees

Almost as many patients as there are days in a year.

 

The thieves hoard lifesaving equipment for profit.

Our president has a little price tag for our parents:

He says the economy must be open by Easter,

He says he imagines the churches full of people!

 

I am reliving the house arrest years, the Cold War,

Then the enemy outside the front door

Had keys to let itself into the house.

Now the enemy is invisible and I can’t hear the keys.

 

Our Governor went on television to demand

Help for the hospitals: “Where are the respirators?”

He said we need 30,000, we have 400.

Our loved ones have become a string of numbers.

 

 

*

 

 

It’s not all dark, Jane. The robin hops by the front door.

The grass turned green almost overnight,

Our first blue hyacinth bloomed at the back of the house

And the yew stirs with red cardinals and blue jays.

 

I am going to spend the day contemplating

The meaning of virtual prayer, and thinking about virtue.

But I will also cook, clean, and walk with my children,

To feel the real, to protect myself against the imagined.

 

 

March 26, 2020

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poesia per il tempo presente

 

Va tutto bene – dicono – per ora.

Piena la dispensa, medicine bastevoli,

nessun bisogno di uscire se non per il cane.

 

Silenziosa, la strada – possiamo

sentir mormorare gli alberi

sulla riva del fiume, tutto è come

una domenica lunga, senza chiesa.

 

Abbiamo tutto il tempo

di vedere gli alberi fiorire.

Quando è stata

l’ultima volta?

 

I vecchi stanno quieti, ma anche noi

stiamo bene, i più giovani, per ora.

Abbiamo il tempo di giocare coi bambini,

cucinare, lavare le tende, e finalmente

fare di nuovo l’amore.

 

Ora che sono vuoti i negozi

e i parcheggi laboratori semoventi,

abbiamo tutto il tempo di pregare

per chi muore negli ospedali.

 

Preghiamo che le infermiere stiano sane

nei loro lunghi travagli. Preghiamo

che dormano bene i dottori, la notte

prima di tornare a lottare

per afferrare la vita che sfugge

via fra le loro dita,

per ora.

 

In altri paesi cantano dai balconi

per non disperare, in mezzo a tanto morire.

Noi chiamiamo controlliamo rassicuriamo

e sorridiamo da lontano,

nella speranza,

per ora.

 

Carmen Bugan, “For the time being”

Translated from English by Matteo Veronesi

 

 

 

 

Deocamdată

 

Se spune că stăm bine, deocamdată.

Mâncare destulă în cămară, rețeta ne-am luat-o,

N-avem nevoie să ieșim din casă,

Doar cât să scoatem câinele la alergat în curte.

 

Pe stradă s-a lăsat tăcerea, auzim copacii

Pe lângă râu, parcă ar fi o duminică lungă

Dar fără biserică. Avem tot timpul

Să vedem copacii cum înfloresc. De când nu i-am mai văzut?

 

Bătrânii sunt obișnuiți cu statul în casă toată ziua.

Dar și noi, cei tineri, stăm bine, măcar deocamdată.

Avem timp să ne jucăm cu copiii, sa facem pâine,

Să spălăm perdelele și să facem dragoste din nou, în sfârșit!

 

Acum că rafturile magazinelor sunt goale

Și parcările sunt laboratoare de testare

Mobile, avem timp să ne rugăm

Pentru cei care mor în spitale.

 

Ne rugăm să le țină sănătatea pe asistente în

Turele prelungite. Ne rugăm să doarmă bine

Doctorii înainte de a lupta să țină viețile

Bine în mâini, deocamdată.

 

În alte țări, mulți cântă de la balcoane

Să se îmbărbăteze unii pe alții când văd atâta moarte,

Noi sunăm, cerem vești, liniștim și zâmbim

De la distanță, sperând: deocamdată.

 

15 Martie 2020

Carmen Bugan “For the time being”

Traducere de Anca Bărbulescu