I'm a very messy record-keeper. I know I have it in me to be super-organized (no, seriously!), but for some reason I've been putting it off and as a result the innards of my computer are a mess. There are all these old files and duplicates and jumbled ramblings and pieces of poetry and pieces of translation that pop out of nowhere and then I can never find again (ask me how often I've done the dreaded "search for a phrase in the document" thing in the past month, just go ahead and ask)--and as a result, I often feel lost when left alone with my best friend, my laptop.
You know what's worse, though? When I try to make amends and start going through the files with a fine-tooth comb, deciding what's there to keep, what to delete, etc.--and then I waste half a day on that, and never finish, and dread coming back to it, and as a result, the files continue to be, if possible, even more disorganized than before.
Especially when I get distracted by things I find and I can't even remember writing. Like this little poem:
Dragă Şeherezada,
Vraja s-a risipit ca zăpada;
A rămas doar o şuviţă de fum,
Lipită cu scoci într-un album;
O amintire ciufulită de ploi,
Dar tivită cu soare—
Tu şi el, la plimbare,
Şi trei nu rimează cu doi.
At first I thought it belonged to someone else--the "Draga Seherezada" line is a famous Andries song--but no, I think it belongs to me (how sad is that, to forget your own creation? pretty sad, indeed!). So, in order to further postpone my organizational fervor, I've done a quick and dirty translation here:
Dear Scheherazade,
The magic has started to fade;
There’s only a thin strand of fume,
Locked in an album in a room;
A memory rain muddled through,
But hemmed with sunlight—
You and him, walking tight,
And three never does rhyme with two.
For all it's worth, I like the original better. *Cough.* I think it's inspired by the aftermath of my brief (but real!) email correspondence with Andries, which came to an abrupt halt when we actually crossed paths, however briefly, in Bucharest, about three years ago, in front of the Cărtureşti bookstore (from where I did, indeed, purchase an Andries concert DVD). Anyway, after that brief face-to-face, our correspondence ceased and desisted. Heh! And so, to commemorate that, I think I wrote this little poem.
Ok, now I know why it sounded so strange: I never write poetry in Romanian anymore. It's been ages and ages since I've done it; all my current productions are, in fact, in English. So perhaps it wasn't me who wrote this, after all? But then, who? Or was I sleep-rhyming? God, my so-called artistic life is more tenebrous than a postmodern theory opus.
