Adela Greceanu
The Provincial
I lack any sort of talent for being a woman. I
am a provincial when it comes to love.
Almost always, I use other people’s words
when I must speak,
which, fortunately, is not often.
I am a provincial when it comes to language.
I usually prefer to stay in my 18 square metre one-room flat and look
out the window from the eighth floor.
Good thing I don’t have to tell what I see and
what I think.
If someone looked at me from behind,
they would see the back of a woman or of a little girl,
with a mane of brown hair hanging down it.
On the little street between the apartment block and the cemetery,
suddenly four, five, six people pass on bicycles.
Speed. Sun.
Seven, eight.
The chestnut trees are in bloom in the cemetery.
The provincial in me sees all this,
but there’s no one to look at her from behind,
as she sits there, with the back of a woman or of a little girl,
motionless.
Mariana
On Saturday afternoons and Sundays most of all in
the street you hardly see anyone but
beggars, madmen and hooligans.
Poor teenagers, in colourful clothes, speaking loudly.
Their foreheads crinkled, as though
they’re just learning their letters.
From the eighth floor,
on the little street between the apartment block and the cemetery, all
you can see now is Mariana and her friends.
Mariana sells candles and votive lights, matches and incense,
flowerpot soil, flowers and wreaths,
natural flowers
and plastic flowers
in a rickety kiosk made of white double-pane glass: Mariana’s Flower Shop.
She has a TV in there and, in winter, an electric radiator.
By now there’s no one passing,
it’s past six in the evening,
it’s Sunday.
Mariana is sitting on a stool in front of Mariana’s Flower Shop
eating sunflower seeds.
A few boys are hanging around her
in tight t-shirts,
spindly boys, their hands unmoving
in their jeans pockets,
staring blankly,
carefully preened boys, their hair all styled,
dyed in electric colours.
Blue, blond, hot pink, green.
Mariana looks like their mother,
with her bulging breasts,
about to fall out of her Calvin Klein top,
with her blond streaks framing her cheeks
which are always unshaven.
Mariana looks like their father,
with her big hands,
with her broad back, fit for carrying
the bagfuls of flowerpot soil,
with her sturdy hips,
wrapped in the long, airy skirt.
Two boys could sit on her knees
at the same time.
Mariana is kind, she allows them to hang around her.
The boys listen to her motionlessly,
every evening they come and gather in
front of Mariana’s Flower Shop.
Mariana speaks and spits out the sunflower husks straight onto the sidewalk. Her
shrill voice
reaches up to the eighth floor,
even with the window closed.
Still, you can’t tell
what she’s talking about.
The provincials
If someone looked at me from behind now, as
I sit by the window
and they would see my brown mane
hanging down the back of a woman or of a little girl,
they could think:
Here is the very picture of loneliness!
And they would be right, somewhat.
But only until their word,
loneliness,
met my word,
provincial.
Then I would start being right instead.
Though not entirely.
And I could tell them about how
we are all, almost constantly,
provincials.
When it comes to the seen and to
the unseen,
to what can be said and
particularly to what cannot be said.
About how evening falls.
And how you can see that from the eighth floor.
How the wind opened the kitchen window and
a man is calling his woman his little warbler.
About how, at Mariana’s Flower Shop, Mariana is watching TV
and eating sunflower seeds.
It’s best not to try and tell anyone about all this.
Best just to look and listen.
And, listening, to find yourself
mixed in with the falling evening, with Mariana and her sunflower seeds,
with the wind that opened the window,
with the warbler.
Adila
On Saturday afternoons, but on Sundays most of all,
you don’t really feel like going out.
On the streets, just the
beggars, madmen, and hooligans.
Poor teenagers, in colourful clothes, talking loudly.
Their foreheads crinkled, like
they’re just learning their letters.
Adila is sitting by her window at the eighth floor.
It’s hot.
The truth is that each word
is only the tip of an iceberg. Underneath
nameless meanings teem
and the odd one
is sometimes drawn to the surface
by the force of the word above
and crammed in there, among the basic meanings.
Words are a province too
when it comes to the bustling meanings below them,
meanings unknown and unclaimed up there, above.
A province built vertically.
For instance, someone tells you:
Adila, you’re tense!
Then, a few days later, someone else tells you:
Adila, you’re tense!
And you could think they both mean the same thing.
When, actually, each “tense”
is a pump seeking to chug up something different
from the writhing meanings underneath.
On the other hand,
each of us is the tip of an iceberg.
Some sit qui-et-ly
with their bottoms resting on all possible meanings.
Others keep fidgeting like a hen on eggs.
The first, if they argue,
are good at calling things what they are. The
latter, if they want to say “mountain”, would
be capable of writing a whole novel.
Or simply
of looking at you in a certain way
and having that mean “mountain”.
Same for “doorknob”.
Same thing happens
when they want to swear, a
novel or
a certain arching of their lips.
Still, that does not mean
that you could never hear from them a
simple “bloody fucking hell”
or a common “good morning.”
You’re so pretty
Adila goes to the market.
Adila goes to work.
To buy potatoes and chicken livers in foam trays.
To earn money to pay the bank.
Every now and then
a man comes to her one-room flat.
Adila turns her back to the window.
The back of a woman or of a little girl,
with a mane of brown hair hanging down it.
She turns on the light.
The light starts from under the lamp’s green hat
and spreads through the flat.
The man has brought a bottle of wine.
He’s opened it.
With him, there’s no need to say anything. If
she tries to say something –
about the teenagers with crinkled foreheads,
about Mariana and her boys,
about how a man can call his woman his little warbl…,
he interrupts her: you’re so pretty!
So, every time he comes over,
Adila disappears with him
for a while
and only the light spreading
from under the green hat
over the glasses of wine…
Adela Greceanu (Sibiu, 1975) had her poetry debut in 1997, with Titlul volumului meu, care mă preocupă atât de mult... (The Title of My Volume, Which Preoccupies Me So...), followed by Domnișoara Cvasi (Miss Quasi), Înțelegerea drept îninimă (Understanding Straight Through the Heart) and, in 2014, Și cuvintele sunt o provincie (Words are a Small Town Too). She is a member of the Union of Romanian Writers and of the Romanian PEN Club. Her texts have been translated intoGerman, English, Swedish, Slovenian, and Albanian.
The Provincial
I lack any sort of talent for being a woman. I
am a provincial when it comes to love.
Almost always, I use other people’s words
when I must speak,
which, fortunately, is not often.
I am a provincial when it comes to language.
I usually prefer to stay in my 18 square metre one-room flat and look
out the window from the eighth floor.
Good thing I don’t have to tell what I see and
what I think.
If someone looked at me from behind,
they would see the back of a woman or of a little girl,
with a mane of brown hair hanging down it.
On the little street between the apartment block and the cemetery,
suddenly four, five, six people pass on bicycles.
Speed. Sun.
Seven, eight.
The chestnut trees are in bloom in the cemetery.
The provincial in me sees all this,
but there’s no one to look at her from behind,
as she sits there, with the back of a woman or of a little girl,
motionless.
Mariana
On Saturday afternoons and Sundays most of all in
the street you hardly see anyone but
beggars, madmen and hooligans.
Poor teenagers, in colourful clothes, speaking loudly.
Their foreheads crinkled, as though
they’re just learning their letters.
From the eighth floor,
on the little street between the apartment block and the cemetery, all
you can see now is Mariana and her friends.
Mariana sells candles and votive lights, matches and incense,
flowerpot soil, flowers and wreaths,
natural flowers
and plastic flowers
in a rickety kiosk made of white double-pane glass: Mariana’s Flower Shop.
She has a TV in there and, in winter, an electric radiator.
By now there’s no one passing,
it’s past six in the evening,
it’s Sunday.
Mariana is sitting on a stool in front of Mariana’s Flower Shop
eating sunflower seeds.
A few boys are hanging around her
in tight t-shirts,
spindly boys, their hands unmoving
in their jeans pockets,
staring blankly,
carefully preened boys, their hair all styled,
dyed in electric colours.
Blue, blond, hot pink, green.
Mariana looks like their mother,
with her bulging breasts,
about to fall out of her Calvin Klein top,
with her blond streaks framing her cheeks
which are always unshaven.
Mariana looks like their father,
with her big hands,
with her broad back, fit for carrying
the bagfuls of flowerpot soil,
with her sturdy hips,
wrapped in the long, airy skirt.
Two boys could sit on her knees
at the same time.
Mariana is kind, she allows them to hang around her.
The boys listen to her motionlessly,
every evening they come and gather in
front of Mariana’s Flower Shop.
Mariana speaks and spits out the sunflower husks straight onto the sidewalk. Her
shrill voice
reaches up to the eighth floor,
even with the window closed.
Still, you can’t tell
what she’s talking about.
The provincials
If someone looked at me from behind now, as
I sit by the window
and they would see my brown mane
hanging down the back of a woman or of a little girl,
they could think:
Here is the very picture of loneliness!
And they would be right, somewhat.
But only until their word,
loneliness,
met my word,
provincial.
Then I would start being right instead.
Though not entirely.
And I could tell them about how
we are all, almost constantly,
provincials.
When it comes to the seen and to
the unseen,
to what can be said and
particularly to what cannot be said.
About how evening falls.
And how you can see that from the eighth floor.
How the wind opened the kitchen window and
a man is calling his woman his little warbler.
About how, at Mariana’s Flower Shop, Mariana is watching TV
and eating sunflower seeds.
It’s best not to try and tell anyone about all this.
Best just to look and listen.
And, listening, to find yourself
mixed in with the falling evening, with Mariana and her sunflower seeds,
with the wind that opened the window,
with the warbler.
Adila
On Saturday afternoons, but on Sundays most of all,
you don’t really feel like going out.
On the streets, just the
beggars, madmen, and hooligans.
Poor teenagers, in colourful clothes, talking loudly.
Their foreheads crinkled, like
they’re just learning their letters.
Adila is sitting by her window at the eighth floor.
It’s hot.
The truth is that each word
is only the tip of an iceberg. Underneath
nameless meanings teem
and the odd one
is sometimes drawn to the surface
by the force of the word above
and crammed in there, among the basic meanings.
Words are a province too
when it comes to the bustling meanings below them,
meanings unknown and unclaimed up there, above.
A province built vertically.
For instance, someone tells you:
Adila, you’re tense!
Then, a few days later, someone else tells you:
Adila, you’re tense!
And you could think they both mean the same thing.
When, actually, each “tense”
is a pump seeking to chug up something different
from the writhing meanings underneath.
On the other hand,
each of us is the tip of an iceberg.
Some sit qui-et-ly
with their bottoms resting on all possible meanings.
Others keep fidgeting like a hen on eggs.
The first, if they argue,
are good at calling things what they are. The
latter, if they want to say “mountain”, would
be capable of writing a whole novel.
Or simply
of looking at you in a certain way
and having that mean “mountain”.
Same for “doorknob”.
Same thing happens
when they want to swear, a
novel or
a certain arching of their lips.
Still, that does not mean
that you could never hear from them a
simple “bloody fucking hell”
or a common “good morning.”
You’re so pretty
Adila goes to the market.
Adila goes to work.
To buy potatoes and chicken livers in foam trays.
To earn money to pay the bank.
Every now and then
a man comes to her one-room flat.
Adila turns her back to the window.
The back of a woman or of a little girl,
with a mane of brown hair hanging down it.
She turns on the light.
The light starts from under the lamp’s green hat
and spreads through the flat.
The man has brought a bottle of wine.
He’s opened it.
With him, there’s no need to say anything. If
she tries to say something –
about the teenagers with crinkled foreheads,
about Mariana and her boys,
about how a man can call his woman his little warbl…,
he interrupts her: you’re so pretty!
So, every time he comes over,
Adila disappears with him
for a while
and only the light spreading
from under the green hat
over the glasses of wine…
Adela Greceanu (Sibiu, 1975) had her poetry debut in 1997, with Titlul volumului meu, care mă preocupă atât de mult... (The Title of My Volume, Which Preoccupies Me So...), followed by Domnișoara Cvasi (Miss Quasi), Înțelegerea drept îninimă (Understanding Straight Through the Heart) and, in 2014, Și cuvintele sunt o provincie (Words are a Small Town Too). She is a member of the Union of Romanian Writers and of the Romanian PEN Club. Her texts have been translated intoGerman, English, Swedish, Slovenian, and Albanian.