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ADELA GRECEANU



The title of my collection, which preoccupies me so much (1997)


When you retype / edit my texts, please start each line with

A capital letter, even if your capital letters do not match my

Capital letters, even without paying attention to the latter.

This way, each text will expect to be retyped a certain

Number of times, which it holds within itself, in its essence.

It will always be another (something else). Each text is a

Little monster. The number of ways it can be written

Probably stands for the age it will die at.


***


Perhaps there was a primary fund of events – the given

Ones – and we, from an excess of zeal, added some others.

Of course, they can not be compared with the given ones

But – what an irony! – we don’t even know how to

distinguish between them anymore. The first, and actually

The only valid events, are clear as daylight.


We are amazed: no, events cannot be but individual, no

Matter how invented, how perfected they are.


Events can turn their back on you, can mind their own

Business, even if you invent them, they hold their own.


***


I have sweet water fingers. I poured home-made syrup over

Them. The fingers are shared among the flowers, each of

Them has a yellow flower. There are many yellow flowers.

Some of them taller, some shorter. The short ones look for

Something in the grass. In fact, they are also tall, but they

Bent to one side or the other, they sank a little in the ground.

When they don’t want to grow – when they are looking for

Something – so that nothing is lost, their roots grow, in the

Opposite side. And they are also yellow and beautiful, as if

They’ve just sprung now for the first time.


My fingers are shared among the flowers. Now, with these

Sweet fingers, I think I’ll cause a great joy to the yellow

Flowers. I’ll strive to delight all of them at once, both the tall

Ones, and the short ones, Although these latter ones are a

Little more difficult to please. Their joy will please me just

As much.


***


Last summer is a house painted in yellow and red and other

Similar colours. The people inside the house are silent.

They just smile, like in a photograph. Their words have

Long ago grown silent, since I don’t live there anymore. I

Don’t know when exactly this happened. I assume it was

Like this: while I was still living inside the house, just as

Soon a word happened to be born, it was immediately

Turned into a flower, grass, sun, so that the summer grew.

That is, the walls of the house grew, and by growing, they

Got further and further from me, I who was there, between

The four of them. I didn’t realize what was happening and I

Talked a lot and very beautifully. Still talking

Words-flowers, the walls kept getting further in the four

Directions until I ended up outside. Outside was Summer.


***


Opening a window, a butterfly can come in the room. But an

Open window is no longer a window. It can be a door, for

Instance. When it enters the room, the butterfly actually

Remains outside, and only its flight enters, and it is the

Flight that we see. The butterfly remains near the window

Hovering in place, until its real flight returns to it and they

Leave together. That’s why they say: “the butterfly takes its

Flight” – and leaves, we could add. But this happens only

By opening a window, which then does foolish things, in the

Sense that it believes itself to be either an open door, or an

Open eye, or even a butterfly – who’s to tell? – a butterfly,

Which remains outside and only its flight enters the room

And it is the flight that we see, and then it returns to its

Butterfly and they leave together while somebody quickly

Closes the window, lest other butterflies entered the room.



***


We stand face to face. I begin by breathing clean air in my

Chest, imagining that I fixed one of its ends inside, then I let

It out. You receive the air I breathed out, like a kiss,

Breathing it in, and you tie its other end in the depth of your

Lungs, like planting it. You respond to me, letting back out

The air you’ve received, as if the root in the lungs flowered.

And I gather the air between us, I hide it quickly at my back,

And I ask of you to guess in which hand I caught It. You

Make desperate signs that you have no air to breathe, I

Insist that you guess. You haven’t guessed, instead you

Greedily breathe in the air I let go of my hand. You breathe

In, you breathe out, all by yourself. You forgot about me.

You seem happy, free, but I say you breathe in vain.

Eventually, you look down – I was at your feet. I was not

Breathing for a long time.


Adela Graceanu

Translated by Adrian Urmanov