Sailing through the Gates of Time by Mugurel Puşcaş. English version by Rodica-Ioana Bândilă
MUGUREL PUȘCAȘ
Sailing through the Gates of Time
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English version
by Rodica-Ioana Bândilă
Editura NICO, 2016
FOREWORD
With this volume, we are invited into a world of feelings. Worshipping the Divine, resigned sadness, love and loss are assigned meaning by the faith in divine hands that shape Man’s inner peace and belief. The recurrent theme of the volume seems to focus on time and life cycles, with an acute feeling of passing. Poetic feelings work as memories of the merger with God. Credo, Love Cabin, Ages, seasons, Citadel poetry are the four sections that define the inner journey into poetry, in Ms. Rodica-Ioana Bândilă’s careful translation.
Searches, wishes, and memories become kisses that seal the strong dichotomy of Light and Darkness, with the poet’s imagination to carry us over time into immemorial, universal history. Day and night blend in poetry with a touch of Bacovia’s impressionism (Noaptea unui mileniu/A millennium’s night):
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Vine noaptea, iubito…Inorogi poartă-n coarne ( Renăscuţi din cenuşa unor vremi dispărute…), Steaua noastră duală, adumbrind peste toamne Strict urmându-şi cărarea, fantomantica rută.
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Night comes, baby … Unicorns carrying on their horn (Reborn from the ashes of a long gone world …) Our dual star, watching over autumn from above Strictly following its path, a ghostlike path. |
The volume seems to describe the route of an inner journey. Thoughts and interrogations may be making up part of the poet’s biography (Lună plină/Full moon):
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Tâmpla mea de aur ninge Fulgi de lacrimi mari, de sânge… Frunze cad, despică-n noapte, Ale tale calde şoapte. Lună plină, cabotină…. Cine oare e de vină ? |
My grey temple pouring down Big flakes of scarlet blood Leaves fall down, splitting your warm whispers, Into the night. Fool moon, hammy moon – Sending rays of silver blue |
The bond to the city that has seduced the poet is transparent in poems, such as Martie fierbint/Hot March, while Valea Râșnoavei and Predeal are two of the charmed places that bear the echo of fond memories (Valea Râșnoavei/Râșnoava Valley, Prințesă cu ochii de rouă/Princess with eyes of dew):
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„ Oraşul de pe deal „ dormea supus, Un cetăţean te admira sedus, Îşi construia o lume, din himere. Comete cu stelare, albe trene, Îmi luminau pasiunile lumeşti, Mă strecuram printre stejari celeşti Îngreunat de gânduri, noi troiene…
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Chimaeras climbing down the woods, over the city on the hill at dawn’s roots everything was sleeping but a man whose mind was weaving a comet, white-tailed universe expanding my earthly, burning passions lighting. Creeping through heavenly oak trees with thoughts running about cold and free… |
Or:
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Prinţesă cu pântec de rouă, O briză adie veral, Potecile vechi te aşteaptă – În noul şi-eternul Predeal |
Princess with eyes of dew, A vernal breeze gently blows, The old trails are waiting for you – In the new and eternal Predeal. |
Meaning transfer and equivalence of the wealth of feelings in the Transylvanian realm pose the challenge the translator proposes, in her invitation to discover synchronous universes, to open our hearts to poetry and its eternal youth (Veșnic tânăr/Forever young):
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Vreau aripi să zbor peste timp, Să fiu iarăşi prim-anotimp, Pe veci, tânăr să fiu aş vrea, Cu ochi de granit, jad de stea. |
I wish I could have wings of rhyme, So I could fly, be the seasons’ prime-time, I wish I could stay forever young, With star and coal-like eyes…
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ANDREA PETERLICEAN– Lecturer,
SAPIENTIA UNIVERSITY Tg. Mureș
