This place in space is dedicated and devoted to Adriana Carmen Papara, a most wonderful woman and magnificent soul.

These were the words she chose to display in a Profile:

"Beautiful are the things we can see,
More beautiful the ones we can understand,
But the most beautiful are those we cannot embrace
with our mind."


Please read this blog from oldest to newest posts, and click on pictures for larger views.

Title photograph, "Full Moon and Peach Blossoms", taken by Adriana at her home in Medias, Romania.

Friday, September 3, 2010

A PRESCIENT POEM

Adriana translated this poem for me at least two years ago, and in view of her sudden and completely unexpected passing recently I am struck by the irony of the title and the fact that she chose a poem which became so sadly appropriate.  I will quote the lines which impressed me the most before I present the entire translation:

"There is no time for a little tenderness,
When we do this, we’ll die." 

And the final lines (Adriana did not translate the entire poem and chose these lines as the ending): 

"I learned that you have to part from dear ones with sweet words,
It might be the last time you see them!"



WE HAVE TIME


by
Octavian Paler
Translated from Romanian by Adriana Papara



We have time for anything,

To sleep, to run from one place to another,

To regret that we made mistakes, and make others,

To judge others and absolve ourselves.


We have time to read and write,

To correct what we wrote, to regret what we have written,


We have time to make projects and don’t respect them,

We have time to make illusions, to search for them on the ashes later,

We have time for ambitions and diseases,

To blame destiny and the details,

We have time to look at the clouds, at advertising or an accident,


We have time to push away our questions,

To put off the answers,

We have time to break a dream and reinvent it,

We have time to make friends and lose them,

We have time to learn and to forget what we have learned,

We have time to receive gifts and not understand their meaning.


WE HAVE TIME FOR ANYTHING!


There is no time for a little tenderness,

When we do this, we’ll die.


In this life I have learned something that I have to share with you,

I learned that you cannot make someone love you.


All you can do is to be a beloved one,

The rest depends on the others,

I learned that it take years to gain trust,

and only a few seconds are enough to lose it,


I learned that it doesn’t matter WHAT you have in your life,

It matters WHO is in your life,


I learned that you have to part from dear ones with sweet words,

It might be the last time you see them!

4 comments:

  1. This is a wonderful tribute in memory of Adriana! through this blog she will always be among us! God rest her soul!
    Julia (a cousin of her)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Julia, thank you for your Comment! You are very kind. I am happy to know that you saw Adriana's place on the Internet. If you have suggestions for more things that I should post here, please tell me.

    Fleming

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  3. I think her parents are very grateful to you for this blog. When they showed it to me and my family I noticed a great spiritual satisfaction in their eyes. Although it seems a thing so small and insignificant, compared with the pain caused by her death, can do so much for her family, who somehow found a consolation through it...

    Julia

    ReplyDelete
  4. Julia, I am very grateful to you for telling me these things. Would you be willing to exhange an email with me? My address is fling@cfl.rr.com. Adriana's mother has written to me on Yahoo Messenger in Romanian, but I don't know Romanian, and Google Translate does a terrible job. Your English is excellent. Adriana was the closest person in the world to me, and it would be very good for me to communicate with one of her relatives who is fluent in English. Thank you!

    Fleming
    fling@cfl.rr.com

    ReplyDelete