Stories
On his birthday
POSTED IN contemporary poetry, Stories September 19, 2015
On his birthday
A happy birthday to you, my heart beat!
May love and laughter light your every day!
May peace and wisdom bless your every way,
and may you never steal, or lie, or cheat!Your eyes are filled with playful, candid light,
and Night, from your hair, shiny colours borrows,
and your soul pledged to Fate solemn and tight
to be forever honest, true to heart,
so if you must steal, steal away my sorrows.And every day we grow older together,
we change with age but Time we shall defeat
and we shall be eternal wind and feather,
and never shall we lose our faith and wit
for if you must lie, lie with me my sweet.A year from now you’ll read these words again
and you will wish: may the birthday that follows
bring other songs but always same refrain:
be always my Spring, my Green, my Crane!
And if you must cheat, cheat all Death’s tomorrows!May you never steal, or lie, or cheat,
but if you must steal, steal away my sorrows,
and if you must lie, lie with me, my sweet,
and if you must cheat, cheat all Death’s tomorrows,
for, without you, my soul feels incomplete.
Bielka
Prieteni de-o viata / Lifetime friends
POSTED IN Stories September 14, 2015
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If need be
POSTED IN Stories September 13, 2015
If need beCandle light, candle glow,
inner sight, will to know,
healing light surround me now,
relieve my Spirit’s darkest vow.I am the Earth, centred and strong,
I am the vessel for good and wrong,
the human soul roots grow deep through me.
If need be.I am the Air, I sense every thrill.
My mind is keen to reveal the true will.
To melt myself into candlelight plea.
If need be.I am the Fire, I’ve powers within
to know my true self, to burn and to win.
To act upon Fate I want to break free.
If need be.I am the Water, calm and serene.
I see into my depths all the unseen.
The Threefold law I multiply by three
If need be.I am soft of eye and light of touch.
I speak a little, I listen much.
I am the Spirit of the true will free
If need be.Candle light, candle glow,
inner sight, will to know,
healing light surround me now:
my spirit is free of its darkest vow.
28.10.2014
Maria Magdalena Biela
Letter from Heaven / Scrisoare din Cer
POSTED IN Stories September 13, 2015
Letter from Heaven
Scrisoare din Cer
Cand maine-ncepe far’ de mine
si nu-s aici sa vad lumini
cum soarele rasare
si-ti da o sarutare
pe ochii dragi, de lacrimi plini,as vrea atat sa nu mai plangi,
asa cum plangi si azi pesemne,
gandindu-te: ce multe lucruri
sa-mapartasim n-avuram vreme.Stiu cat de mult tu ma iubesti,
asa cum te iubesc si eu.
Mereu, la mine cand gandesti,
Stiu, iti lipsesc si imi lipsesti.Cand maine-ncepe far’ de mine,
nu te gandi la despartire;
in inima-ti si-orice gandire,
exist si eu, si-mi este bine.Maria Magdalena Biela
Happy Birthday, my dearest Father!
POSTED IN Stories July 14, 2015
Happy Birthday, my dearest Father!The table of shadows invites everybody to take a sit and tell a story.
The old Jewish house of my childhood does not exist anymore, but in my memories. Late in the heart of night, when every soul sleeps, my friend, Insomnia, opens to me old windows that in the light of day seem to be locked. I see myself, a four-year-old, running wildly between the trees of our orchard, climbing and hiding and running away from brothers, sisters and especially my mother. They always threatened me with ”lunch, dinner”, awful words, scary sentences for a four-year-old who loved climbing the trees and eating their fruits only.
I see my father, tall, dark, pale, a Poet, gathering us together, five children, and organizing a poetry contest, behind the house.
There he would improvise a stage where we would recite poems, to be rewarded for the best acting ever.
I see myself fidgeting, fighting my tears and my fears, climbing the stage behind the improvised curtain, trying to remember my poem.
Of course, I always won!
Everybody would be ready to give up their own pride only to see my serious and proud face receiving the chocolate trophy from my father’s hands.
My brothers used to sing but I, with my small voice, I would recite classic love poems not knowing the meaning of the words, and I would say ”I love you forever” with the same passion, hunger, delight, that I would eat my chocolate prize with.
I never smiled. Yet, in my father’s arms, I would hug him strongly, thankfully, collecting his tears with my fingers and wondering where they come from.
I would caress his face and dry his tears of love silently.
He loved through me, he recited with me, he cried for divine love having me in his arms.
Whose voice recited those poems? My voice or my Father’s?
I would not know….I do not know…I will never know.Maria Magdalena Biela
Haris
POSTED IN Stories June 25, 2015
Haris
Now, after writing his name as a title I realize that it rhymes with Paris! I did not observe that first time we met and we’ve been introduced. Maybe because in French pronunciation “Haris” becomes “Ari”, with the accent on “i”. Who is Haris / Ari?
Well, this is a wonder! Most of the tourists go to Paris to see all the history, culture, beauty, etc. Some go also to see the streets, the cafés, to enjoy a Parisian sunlight sitting on a Parisian bench in a Parisian garden, listening to Parisians talking, seeing them smiling, or just breathing the city of Edith Piaf. But some tourists are just heavenly lucky, like me, and have somebody, like a guardian angel, to show them Parisian wonders which aren’t meant for everybody’s eyes.
So, one blessed morning in Paris I met Haris. Where did I meet him? In his atelier, while he had a break. Haris is the last miracle of all times Paris. The last best tailor of the world, the most famous, the most humble, the most human, the most “Pontic Greek” (as he always likes to stress strongly: “I am born Pontic Greek, from Pontus Euxinus!”) on earth.
He made suits for the King of Morocco, but he isn’t comfortable to mention in his presence how famous he is.
The amazing part is his atelier. This great artisan with golden hands makes his miracles in a small old fashioned atelier, with old fashioned tools, in the heart of Montmartre.
Theocharis (he is very proud of his whole name, Greek name, which means “the Grace of God”) is a walking encyclopaedia. I was watching him working, I followed with my eyes his fast and intelligent fingers (they seem to have a life of their own!) and I was listening meanwhile to his stories about the land of Pontic Greece, about Crete, about Paris, about the latest films worth watching, about Zorba the Greek and the truth behind its story. His atelier is a piece of art: the last one of this kind in Montmartre, in the whole world maybe. On the walls one could see famous pictures and paintings of famous artists, photos of Haris in his youth, favourite articles from other times.
Haris has a large smile and a strong belief that life is given to us to be lived with passion. He is always ready to share his wisdom with younger pupils, which are coming to his atelier to be taught by the Maestro the art of “hand made suits”, the art of being a tailor. Haris has his own technique of teaching, starting from “how to keep and use a thimble” all the time, to make the thimble part of your finger, even not to feel its existence. When I was there, I met the young beautiful Swedish Maria, who was willing to learn this art, and about whom Haris said “yes, she has a gift”.
I hope that Maria learned from the Maestro everything she needs and that she will also put her heart and soul into this handcraft.
I will always remember Theocharis Malezas and, thanks to him, I watched the movie “Midnight in Paris”, so heartily recommended by him: for sure he belongs to that golden time of Paris and “time travelled” to meet us.
Maria Magdalena Biela
Le Lapin Agile
POSTED IN Stories June 23, 2015
Le Lapin Agile
It was like that: I walked on the streets of Montmartre, watching everything greedily, exhausting my inner eyes, seeing the surroundings, hearing now and then the voice of my friend explaining things, but my heart was running fast to Sacré-Coeur.
I did not pay attention to one particular house, all of them looked alike to me, charming “maisonnettes”, filled with flowers on their small balconies.
And then I heard: “We should come one night to see Le Lapin agile, it is a history of culture…” and the words got lost again in the tumult of my thoughts.
In the following days my friend stressed again: “when should we go to Lapin agile?”, but it was more a rhetorical question, because he knew exactly what and when to do.
And, one evening, after we ate in a Japanese restaurant, we went on our path of many stairs up the hill which led me to Sacré Coeur in my first night in Paris.
But this time it was different. We stopped in front of a “maisonnette”, one of the many around that street, he knocked on the door as if a secret ancient password would have been needed, and once the door opened, I heard people singing and I saw a mysterious man making a sign not to enter until the song was finished. I felt like Alice in Wonderland, everything would have been possible from that moment. And it was.
The song ended, we entered a darkened room filled with red lamps and people, and suddenly I found myself one hundred years ago, in the Montmartre of Picasso, Edith Piaf, Apollinaire, Modigliani. That was Paris of “l’âge d’or”. Paris of my dreams.
Have you seen “Midnight in Paris”, my unknown reader? It was exactly like that, but instead of a taxi to bring me one hundred years back in time, this time for me it was A DOOR opening to the past, the glorious past when Art was Art, and not just a pale imitation. We took our seats around the table shyly, while people were singing old French songs, songs I knew by heart since my childhood and I found myself singing with them.
“Alouette, gentille alouette”, “Plantons la vigne”, “Les Champs – Élysées”, “Chevaliers de la Table ronde”.
And then the same mystery man came with “la boisson de la maison: cherry brandy” and offered it to us. Amazingly, it was the same drink as in my country, only we call it “vișinată”. Soft, tasty, and I very much liked to eat the fruits! Then, one by one, the Artists performed. On the walls there were Picasso’s shadows and memories. He sat maybe on the same chair, paying for his lunch by painting.
I heard Apollinaire’s “Sous le Pont Mirabeau”.
But my favourite of Lapin agile was a mignone “accordioniste”, who reminded me of Edith Piaf. Not only that she sang Piaf’s songs, but she had something from her smile, her way of being. I don’t know her name, that’s why I keep calling her “L’ Accordioniste”, like the song “de la Môme Piaf”.
That night ended too fast. I was brought back to my century too abruptly, I did not like what I saw in my real world. I left part of me there, in Montmartre and somehow in that “maisonnette” where I found the honest “me”, the one I was as a child, singing French songs without reasons. I know, tourists go to Paris to “Les Folies Bergère”, “Le Moulin Rouge”, because “when in Rome, do as Romans do”, when in Paris, one must see places which were the most famous in the past and now, in our commercial present.
Le Lapin agile is not such a place, used by movie makers, burning with powerful lights to make visual noise about its existence. Le Lapin agile was discreet but known one hundred years ago as it is now. This place means Montmartre, means the real Paris with the mystery of candle light, artists who fight for art like they did a hundred years ago. None of those artists who frequented Le Lapin agile in the past were rich, or famous. One painted for food, another one sang, another one wrote. But now, they are immortal because they painted, and sang, and wrote a hundred years ago to survive, and they survived eternity.
Maybe I am a dreamer, but I have learned something in Montmartre: “the true sign of intelligence is not knowledge, it is imagination” (Einstein). Isn’t that right?
Maria Magdalena Biela
Every Arthur needs his Merlin
POSTED IN Stories June 21, 2015
Every Arthur needs his MerlinLife is a puzzle, if one asks me. I cannot speak for every human on this planet, but for me, the one and the only me, life is a puzzle. I have been trying to make some sense into its pieces since I know myself, but every time I seem to put together as a whole some of them, something new appears like not fitting into my big design and then I wait for another piece, and another piece. But, this is normal, isn’t it? If my puzzle were to be ready, my life would be at its end, I guess. Are there people whose life goes perfectly and smoothly from the beginning until the end? I remember that Omar Khayyam defined life as a “chess game of Destiny”.
“But helpless pieces in the game He plays Upon this chequer-board of Nights and Days He hither and thither moves, and checks … and slays Then one by one, back in the Closet lays.”
The Destiny is playing chess alone and we, the humans, we are all mere pawns on his chessboard. He moves us, he decides our winnings and losses, he throws us in the box of nothingness once he gets bored by the game. Then, what choices do we have? Why bother then to wake up in the morning, to go to work, to worry about our well being, knowing all along that everything we do it is predestined, it is previewed? Is it fair? Is it true? Is it acceptable?
The brightest minds of the world seemed to share over the centuries the same definition of life as Omar Khayyam.Seeing life as a puzzle it appeared more appealing to me. At least in a game of puzzle I’d have the right to see the pieces and the liberty to arrange them as I think it fits.
I know, some people desire strongly to make their puzzle perfect from the first try. They even push some pieces into fitting, although it might be not their right places. They ignore the mistakes in their puzzle, and this can be seen later, and cannot be fixed unless one destroys the whole puzzle and starts from the beginning.
Some are brave enough to accept the challenge; some are afraid and continue their flawed puzzle until it is too late. This is my definition of life. I know, it is lacking the idea of “I build my own future, I am the master of my own fate”, but I really do not believe in this. I believe that we might have the power to learn from our mistakes, to accept what is given to us and not to fight evil fights, to do good, no matter what.
I believe also that some things are beyond our comprehending and, sometimes, we might not have a saying in the matter, and we should not push life harder than possible, we should just take a breath, because, I also believe that, in the end, every piece will fall into the correct place.
I never planned anything to happen, I never thought about the future, worrying and carefully thinking what shall be done step by step to achieve my goals.
And yet my goals became reality, no matter what obstacles I had to overcome. And Lord, didn’t I have! I trained myself into the curiosity: “what tomorrow brings ?” and I know that it is not in my powers to change the course of events.
“Everything happens for a reason “, another cliché I hear around me. I do believe it is true, despite the “cliché formula” of the saying. At least in my case it is 100 % true. Everything I did or did not do in this life stormed a chain of happenings, who built in the end the puzzle I find myself staring at right now. People get tired, grow apart, stop talking, never talk, trust, mistrust, imagine things the way they want to be, refuse to see things the way they really are, cheat, are faithful. All of these pieces of the puzzle called life one day find their correct place and take a shape which we might like it or we might not. I for one refuse to refuse the reality. I refuse to replace the talking in my life with text messages, emails, virtual presence, polite presence, absent presence, conventional presence. I talk. I watch people in the eye and say words, even if I feel that that makes people uncomfortable. The moment will come, when people will realize that talking face to face it is not a disease, it is not contaminating, it is not tiring, it is only human. I hug people, even if I know that not everybody likes it. I tell people how beautiful they are, how wonderful they are, even if sometimes it seems to be inappropriate. Maybe I refused some pieces when I accepted to play my puzzle.
We all need to believe that every Arthur needs a Merlin. I learned from my books that the truth comes from the mouth of fools and children.
I have learned, playing my puzzle that life is worth living. Life is beautiful. Life is a gift to be opened every day, a little bit at a time.
Maria Magdalena Biela
Waiting for the cranes
POSTED IN Stories June 19, 2015
Waiting for the cranesAnd again, time takes another path, back through the years, at that age of innocence, when her Papa was young and her only hero. She was around four years old, a wild child, only dark hair and dark big eyes, widely open. They lived in an old Jewish house, an inheritance of her father from his Jewish relatives who left the country and went to Israel, leaving behind a lonely Papa. That house had a wonderful yard, with lots of trees, flowers, places to hide. In spring she’d have the wildest time to express herself. First it was her strong belief that, all the migratory birds would come back to her country personally for her. Then all the trees (particularly the one at her window!) would blossom only for her and spring would come every year just to be her toy.
Hence, every year in late March she hid herself on the roof of their summer kitchen (easy to climb on for a restless child), nobody could find her there, and she was silently waiting for the cranes.
She had the strong belief that they are coming back from other lands just for her and she would see the exact moment the first crane will appear on the horizon in the evening, if she waited for it peacefully, silently, faithfully.
She always went missing at the exact moment her family was gathering around the table, so her mother always had to scream her name, to search for her, to threaten her, and so on…
The first year went well, without big punishments but also with big disappointments, because she could not see her cranes at the moment they entered her country. The second year though brought her a bigger surprise: her father.
The same ritual, she was missing from the dinner table, her mother was nervous, it was late March and she was on the roof waiting. But this time, while everybody was searching for her, father saw her sitting on the roof and holding her knees patiently, and he came next to her, climbing on the same roof, sat in the same position and started to wait…
He did not ask anything, did not say anything… After a few minutes, he whispered: “what are we waiting for?”…
And then she told him her secret: “the cranes, Papa!”Maria Magdalena Biela
The candles’ light
POSTED IN Stories June 17, 2015
The candles’ lightIt is a rainy evening and her thoughts as always are running wild. Dark outside, dark inside (she left the lights off in purpose), only the candles’ light makes Chinese shadows on the walls. She spread candles everywhere, even on the balcony. It’s beautiful. It feels warm, peaceful. Funny thing the candles’ light; she smiles while remembering how the candles and she went hand in hand her whole life but in totally different contexts than now. Back in her childhood and youth she used to write her home works, or she conceived her master thesis using candles’ light, because there was no light. No electricity, no water, cold or hot, limited amount of milk, bread, oil. She used to hate candles. Their light reminded her strongly of the darkness in her life. Because of the candle light she had to wear eyeglasses and lost her sight. Candles meant death or darkness. They were every family’s nightmare, smelly, intoxicating, not enough, necessary.
She never thought that one blessed day she’d surround herself by candles, listening to Chopin. She never imagined that there might be another part of the world where candles really meant light, the light of Christmas Eve, the light of Easter, just Light.
In her new country for the first time she saw people offering each other candles as presents, scented, colorful, healthy. Her first thought when she received a candle present on her birthday was that: “Heavens, am I about to die?”. That was the only thing she felt in her heart when she received the candle.
Of course, now, after so many years, she herself enjoys the light of candles. She buys them. She offers them. And yet, her mother did not fully understand it: “what is the deal with these candles, anyway”.
They still live in the Middle Ages there, back in her humble country. Another thought coming with a smile is about food. She likes to eat soy and tofu products very much.
To eat soy products then, in her childhood or her youth was the only way of living for average people. Now she is joking about this, telling everyone that actually the dictator wanted to keep them as a healthy nation, not to raise their cholesterol by allowing them to use fat products in excess, or drugs like coffee and cigarettes.
And also now, when herself eats only soy food because it is really healthy and keeps her in good shape physically and mentally, she thinks that her metabolism does not recognize any other kind of food but soy. If somebody asks: “how do you preserve yourself so well? What’s your secret?”, then one single answer comes to her mind: “try communism for a change, see how it feels!”
Or “I am fashionably thin due to the lack of food in my country, in my youth”.
Thoughts. Will she ever be free of comparing the past against the present? Every moment of this present life feels like it was lived before, with the same intensity but with other meanings, other fights.
The candles are getting tired slowly. Their light now makes known shadows, shadows of her past. The dogs of her childhood, the linden-trees, the clouds she watched for hours, laying on the ground, imagining stories in heaven.
The rain stays still: tip-tip-top, tip-tip-top. She wonders if there are people like she out there.
Somebody? Anybody who has the same obsessions? Same memories? One candle died. Scented. Time to let the song of the rain drive her to her nightly sleep.Maria Magdalena Biela
