Centre for Romanian Studies

Doris RUNEY
(Visiting Assistant Professor of English,
Oakland University, USA)

My father was born in Bucovina—Stanesti de Jos, and my mother is first generation American-Romanian, from Banat. Consequently I was raised with two languages, two cultures. I spoke Romanian before learning English in school.
I am the founder and artistic director of Tarancuta, a semi-professional Romanian folk dance and music ensemble. I am a published translator (Zalmoxis, 2000) and bilingual writer (“Zalmoxis’s Fireflies”, “The Mulberry Tree”), and currently visiting assistant professor of English at Oakland University. I live with my two sons in Troy, Michigan.

“Visul”

Am visat ca m-am aflat pe un tarm strain si
rumenit de soare si de vânt
abia distinsa in nascocirea
singuratatii
pe plaja indiferenta de mine
de soare si de vânt

era într-un ceas sur
al carui moment s-a marcat din
profilul meu în opunerea
trecerii timpului
nu mai stiu precis când
mi-am dat seama ca-mi lipsese
umbra, dar
pipaind cu mâna,
lânga mine
era nisipul rece unde
a fost ultima ei sedere.

Toata nadejdea apoi s-a
surpat în graunti de
nisipuri miscatoare în care s-a
alunecat sufletul meu
greu de patim?
ai am înteles ce mic este om
si ce mare este tacere când
iti auzi zanganeala oaselor tale însesi.

m-am trezit în sfârsit
înfasurata în giulgiu tesut parca de
paianjen milos din fusul
uitarii,
constienta cu fiecare sclipire ai ochiilor mei usturati
de somn
si de vânt, si de soare,
ca orice miscare m-ar
prapadi în scrum si sare;
simteam rasuflarile mele subrede
prin strângerea si lasarea
pânzei care mereu începuse
sa se rupa cu dezlegarea aceasta profunda

m-am simtit lipita la sânul neantului,
asa încât acel spatiu ce
umpluse cu forma mea patetica si
secata,
era necontopit în planul molecular al timpului în mers;
eram cuprinsa si totodata neîntegrata în
acest loc blestemat de soare, de vânt si de
sufletu-mi sechestrat în plaja
de uitat.

Unde odata mi-a fost ciuda de
lacrimile care cadeau parca fara rost,
unde odata mi-a fost ciuda de
toata dragostea contiguua cu fiinta mea,
si cu trupul meu
când te iubeam, mi-e ciuda acum de
acest loc care isi bate joc de mine cu
contrazicerea existentei mele.

Am adormit.

Am adormit fara lupta si fara remuscari,
leganata de oasele mele care bateau ca
toaca
spre miezul-noptii, si am visat ca
ti-am scris numele pe tabla mea de
nisip.
si vântul a încetat,
si soarele s-a lasat, si fata s-a topit în
muschi
si carne si pielea pe mine, ca o cifra vie.
Valurile îmi veneau ca pareri de rau,
catre tarmul strain si înviat de soare, si de vânt

si am înteles ce mica este durere si ce mare este
nevoia
când poti sa plângi si dincolo de moarte
atunci am varsat o singura lacrima
fierbinte
ai unde a picat a facut o sticla din nisip, în care mi-am
turnat somnul
ai visul
ai moartea acestui
tarm indiferent de
mine de soare si de vânt,
ai am azvârlit-o catre
orizont, spre tine, spre apus;
si cu cât mai departe
a adus-o marea, cu atât mai tare s-a
micsorat spatiul acesta blestemat,
pâna si sufletu-mi
de mult îngropat,
spre soare s-a înaltat.
m-am trezit apoi lin pe un tarm strain
si rumenit
de soare
si de vint, si am gasit numele
tau scris in nisip. M-am asezat lânga el,
si am adormit,
si am visat ca m-ai iubit
odata.

“The Dream” (English translation)
I dreamed I was on a strange shore that was
beaten to a blush by sun and wind,
and in this invention of
loneliness was I barely discernible
on a beach so indifferent to
me
and to the sun
and to the wind.

It was in a grey hour
whose moment marked itself
against my profile in opposition to the passing
of time;

I don’t know anymore
precisely when I realized that
my shadow had been missing
but as I felt with my hand
the sand was cold at her last sojourn.

All hope then crumbled into
grains of quicksand
into which my soul, heavy with
passion slipped away,
and I understood how small is
man
and how great is silence when you
can hear the rattling of your own bones.

I awoke, finally, swaddled in a
shroud woven as though by a
merciful spider, from the spindle of
forgetting
conscious with every blink of my eyes
that burned with sleep
and wind
and sun that any movement would collapse me
into salt and ash.
I felt my frail breaths through the
tightening and loosening of the
cloth that began to tear from this profound release;

I sensed myself so close against the
breast of neant that the space I began to fill
with my pathetic, withered form
was not part of the molecular plane of time’s movement.
I was embraced and yet not integrated
in this place damned by
the sun and
the wind
and
my soul sequestered in this forgotten beach.
Where once I was spiteful of tears that
fell as though for no reason,
where I was once spiteful of all the love
that was contiguous with my body and being when I
loved you,
I am now spiteful of this forsaken spot
that mocks me with the contradiction of my

existence.

I fell asleep.
I fell asleep without struggle or remorse,
rocked by my bones that beat like the
sound of the toac? towards midnight,
and I dreamed I wrote your name in the sand

and the wind slowed,
and the sun left off,
and the swaddling began to melt in
muscle and meat and nerves upon me like a
living
cipher.
The waves approached this strange shore
resurrected by the sun
and the wind,
like regrets,
and I understood how small is the pain
of sorrow, and how great
is need, when you can still cry beyond death.
And it was then I wept a tear—
a single, hot tear that turned the sand to
a glass bottle where it fell; and into it I poured
the sleep
and the dream
and the death of this
shore,
this shore so indifferent to me
the sun
and the wind.

I hurled it toward the horizon, toward you,
toward the west,
and the farther the sea carried it, the smaller this
cursed space became, until my soul
long buried, rose toward the sun.
After, I awoke on a strange shore,
beaten to a blush by
the sun and
the wind,
and I found your name written in the sand.
I sat down beside it, and fell asleep
and dreamed that you once loved
me.

Doris Runey
Bucovina Mica
http://bucovinamica.net

—————————————————————————————

Read more about Romanian Women in:

Blouse Roumaine – The Unsung Voices of Romanian Women

(Centre for Romanian Studies, London, 2009)

(1,100 pages, 160 Biographies, 600 quotations)

http://www.blouseroumaine.com/buy-the-book/index.html