The Trees by Nikolay Gumilev

Poet Nikolay Gumilev the husband of poet Anna Akhmatova, was born in Kronstadt and also later served here for a few years as an officer in the army in Kronstadt. This is one of my favourite poems of his.
P1000975
I know: to the trees, but not to us, 
Perfection of the life is given, whole.
And on the Earth – the sister of the stars –
We live in exile, while they do at home. 

In latest falls, in sad and empty fields,
The red-brass dawns and amber-clad sunrises         
Teach to the hues, dissolved in thinnest films,
These people – green and free forever masses.

Moses exists among these oaks, tall,
And Mary, too – among the palms for ages … 
Their souls send to the others quiet calls
With waters, run in darkness, void of edges.  

While polishing and brushing stony gems,
And grinding rocks, the springs babble in a chore:
They sing a song, or mourn a broken elm,
Or praise the leaves, which dressed a sycamore.  

Oh, if I might be ever blessed to find
The place, where, lost of singing and bewailing,  
I would rise silently up to the heaven height
For the millenniums, unending.
Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, May, 2000
Edited by Dmitry Karshtedt, December, 2000
By |2017-05-02T12:57:06-04:00May 7th, 2013|

Ode to Kronstadt

river

Kronstadt, St Petersburg – 2013

(I)

the left ear of russia

the eye and brow towards the west

key that locks the gate

when you put on your white dress

only then can outsiders walk towards you

(II)

old brick and dry mortar

varicose veins of cracks in your concrete

ceilings caved under burden of ages

the plaster drip from your tired walls

children’s footsteps imprinted in your dusty streets

(III)

incense through the cathedral doors

seeps softly from the warmth within and

touches and reminded passers-by

that this scent is of ages past

its sweetness filled with faint distant voices

By |2017-05-02T12:57:06-04:00May 6th, 2013|

Lost words

birds

Notebook May 3rd – Kronstadt, St Petersburg

Today I wrote a poem, sitting between the pigeons.

It went something like this…?

I wrote it on the back of my lost luggage customs form.

News finally came from Polcovo and I went to collect my orphaned suitcase.

Handing in my official form, now stamped with red bureaucracy circles,

forgetting about the poem penned on the back of it.

Sign here, sign here and sign here and yes you need to sign there.

Now my lonely words are afloat in the Russian ocean of

duplicate forms of black-pen-only frantic tourist scribbles.

The pigeons are still here but the words departed on a one way ticket.

By |2017-05-02T12:59:54-04:00May 5th, 2013|

Sunlight fills my room

from Notebook St.Petersburg Russia, May 2013

Being here I imagine Anna sitting on my bed and whispers to me in her native tongue while the sunlight seeps through the blinds:

Kronstadt, st Petersburg

2013 Anja Marais

8th November 1913

Sunlight fills my room
With hot dust, lucent, grey.
I wake, and I remember:
Today is your saint’s day.
That’s why even the snow
Is warm beyond the window,
That’s why, sleeplessly,
Like a communicant, I slept.
~Anna Akhmatova

By |2017-05-02T12:59:54-04:00May 4th, 2013|

Shift movie going to Cannes Film Festival

SHIFT the stop animation that features a range of my sculptures, will be screened at the Cannes Film Festival!

It is currently on view at MOCA Miami’s exhibition “Pivot Points: 15 Years and Counting”. If you have not seen it yet please go by and see my sculptures coming alive!

•• video artist/filmmaker Juan Carlos Zaldivar, artist/sculpture designer Anja Marais, photographer/ Juan Carlos Castañeda, music/composer Andy Brick ••

Explore my art at https://www.anjamarais.com/project/shift/

See a trailer and info of the film at http://www.shiftmovie.net/

shiftmovie

© Juan Carlos Castaneda – Making of Shift 2012

By |2017-07-11T00:08:18-04:00April 27th, 2013|
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