Elena Liliana Popescu [Romania]

 

When everything is lost
 
The clock did not stop
but hours no longer show
on Time’s dial,
which has come to a standstill, contemplating.
 
Perspective still works,
but objects are no longer clear
against the pure expanse
of unnamed Space.
 
Life has not ended but death
no longer looms at the horizon
waiting for someone to rise up
sometime, somewhere, in the land of oblivion...
 
Everything is as it used to be
though nothing has meaning
when lost in a timeless space,
in a spaceless time…
 
(English version by Adrian G. Sahlean)
 
 
That instant
 
A few words, you told yourself,
just a few—and created
a story whose present
is yesterday by now, just as tomorrow
will be past for another story
left behind,
lost forever...
 
One word, you told yourself,
just one— and you are on your way
the unknown,
that unexpected step, free
to think of who you are and are not,
of that instant in which you can become
and be you.
 
(English version by Adrian G Sahlean)
 
 
You
 
You, night of night,
who was before existence,
where life sprung
suddenly
because it had been there
always,
life that was to come
with time
through all lives
that are born and die
incessantly…
 
You, truth untold,
because mere speech
would hide you from
our unknowing eyes,
you live for us,
within us, unchanging,
forever…
 
You, sea of flames
that never burn, only heal
with their blazing light,
all powerful,
your purifying waves
transform the one who feels
in their murmur the pulse of life,
ebb and flow,
motion and stillness
whole and void, alike –
and yet
none of those,
indescribable form
that cannot be fathomed…
 
My poem melts away
through the darkness surrounding you,
through the deepening fog
that forbids
even a glimpse
of your luminous face…
 
(English version by Adrian George Sahlean)
 
 
 
Author’s Bionote:
 
*Elena Liliana Popescu (1948, Romania). Ph.D. in Mathematics, Professor of the University of Bucharest, Romania. She is a poet, essayist, translator and editor, member of the Writers' Union of Romania and of the Romanian PEN Centre. She has published more than 75 books of poetry and translations from English, French and Spanish, in Romania and abroad (Algeria, Brazil, Canada, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Pakistan, Portugal, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan and USA). Her poems, translated into more than 30 languages, have been published in more than 45 collective volumes (in over 15 countries) and more than 130 journals in Romania and abroad (in over 30 countries). She has received several awards and distinctions literary: Special Diploma at the International Festival of Poetry, Uzdin, Serbia, 1997, the First prize at the Poetry Festival Novalis, Munich, Germany, 199), Special Diploma at the X Certamen de Poesia “Leonardo Cercós”, Palma de Mallorca, Spain, 2007, Diploma de reconocimiento y merito, at Embassy of Spain from Bucharest, Romania, 2011, Prize Dardanica, awarded by the International Writers Association "IWA Bogdani", Macedonia, 2020; KAOWL & CNPN Golden Pen Award, awarded by Korea Association of World Literature & Culture & People Newspaper, 2025. She has published translations in literary journals from the works of over 140 classical and contemporary authors. She has participated in more than 50 literary events in Romania and abroad (Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, France, Italy, Mexico, Nicaragua, Spain, Taiwan, Turkey and USA).