Poem by Viginia Mateias, Art by Hikari – #poem #art

My Dear Readers,

I would like to share with you a fabulous story of friendship and beauty. Several months ago, Virginia Mateias, a Romanian-Canadian poet and journalist, sent me a poem she wrote for me. She entitled the poem, “When an angel becomes unhappy.” I was touched. I was in tears. I read and re-read the poem several times.

After a while Virginia wrote to tell me she sent the poem to a fantastic Japanese painter – Hikari – to make an illustration for it.

Soon after, while traveling in Europe, the art of Hikari came to me in an email. It was a time of gratitude, and a time to kneel in front of friendship and beauty. It was a time of silence.

Below please find Virginia’s poem for me. The featured image belongs to Hikari whom I’ve never met. I hope one day I will get to meet her and thank her personally for her beautiful art.

When an angel becomes unhappy by Virginia Mateias

On a long winter afternoon

The woman with a childlike laugh

Told me

When an angel becomes unhappy

and collapses

tuberoses grow on earth.

Wrapped in loneliness

She suddenly conceded

Half of her sky

Of such a deep blue

To me.

With the strength of a rock and

With the delicacy of a tuberose stem

She analyzed the distance between

The soul of a child and the horizon line

The distance between the collapse and the rebirth

Cover yourself with the blanket, she said,

By night we will be drinking stars.

Bios

Virginia Mateias is the result of two cultures and draws her creative inspiration from her European roots and her North American perspective. Passionate about almost all art forms, she published two volumes of poetry: “The Persistence of Memory “and “In the Shadow of the Angel.” Her poetry has been called by literary critics “original and unique”. Her poems share the three fundamental values: truth, goodness and beauty. Virginia loves nature, travel and all the little things that give life beauty and meaning. She tweets at https://mobile.twitter.com/mateiasvirginia.

Hikari is an award winning Japanese painter. She lives in Tokyo, Japan. In 2022 she was recognized during the Grand Prize Exhibition of Platinum Art Association, and she exhibited with Jiyugaoka Gallery. Hikari’s art is inspired by the spirit of Japanese Nohgaku, one of the traditional styles of Japanese theater passed down from generation to generation for more than 650 years. In 2001 Nohgaku was proclaimed by UNESCO a “Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.” [https://www.unesco.emb-japan.go.jp/htm/nogaku.htm]

About her passion for drawing and colors Hikari says that she “would like to convey a beautiful world in harmony with nature through the gradation of colors and the pattern of the costumes.” You can find Hikari at https://twitter.com/hikari2162554

An interview with the Nobel Prize Nominee Gaetano Camillo was just published in the Literary Revelations Journal. You can read it here: https://literaryrevelations.com/2022/11/07/interview-with-gaetano-camillo-nobel-prize-nominee/

Have a wonderful week everyone.

Gabriela Marie Milton
Pushcart Prize Nominee
Award Winning Author
#1 Amazon Bestselling Author
Books:
Wounds I Healed: The Poetry of Strong Women (ed.), Experiments in Fiction, 2022.
Woman: Splendor and Sorrow :I Love Poems and Poetic Prose, Vita Brevis Press, 2021.
Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings, Vita Brevis Press, 2020

Dear Readers,

I am thrilled to let you know that the poetry collection Cuvinte de Foc (Words of Fire) will be published soon.

The book is coauthored by me and Virginia Mateias. Virginia selected 30 poems from my book Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings and translated them into Romanian. She added 30 poems of hers and reached out to the talented poet, and editor Ymeri Baki, who translated our poems from Romanian into Albanian and wrote the foreword. Cuvinte de Foc became a bilingual Romanian-Albanian poetry book to be publish soon by Amanda Edit Publisher.

I am aware that most of my followers will not be able to read the book. However, what is most important here is that the initiative of this work belongs fully to Virginia. The work that entered in the preparation of the manuscript belongs to Virginia too. I have no words to thank her enough for the hours she spent translating my work, for her dedication, and now for her wonderful friendship.

Almost two years and a half ago I was deeply honored when the Italian poet Flavio Almerighi translated several of my English poems into Italian. I included his translations together with the English originals in my book Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings.

Now, I am honored that part of the poems from Passions will be printed in Romanian and Albanian.

Virginia, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. A man who I came to love deeply wrote in his most important book referring to me: “Without you, there would have been no book.” Now it is my turn to write: “Virginia, without you, there would have been no book.” You brought me to tears.

I truly hope that by the end of this year an English-Spanish edition of this book will be out.

Wishing everyone a fabulous week

Gabriela

Gabriela Marie Milton
#1 Amazon Bestseller Author
Books:
Woman: Splendor and Sorrow :I Love Poems and Poetic Prose
Passions: Love Poems and Other Writings

The Garden of My Youth #Guest Post

A beautiful poem written by one of my friends, Virginia. I hope you enjoy it!

The Garden of My Youth

by Virginia Mateias

(translated from Romanian by the author’s daughter)

With barren feet I step on withered roses.

Out of warm blood-drops,

Memories will bloom

As I walk in the long since deserted house

Straining to hear

My grandmother’s echoing chants,

My earthly father’s forgotten voice.

From specks of dust and wind

I shall reassemble my Mother`s smile,

As my eyes dance away from cracked walls

Then turn to the sky above;

To the aloof,

Benevolent,

Nostalgic sky.

Sunset to sunrise,

I will walk the gardens

Till sleep comes for me and finds me

Hidden In a deep fissure

Near a tall window

Because, you see,

I have always needed high, large spaces.

Afterwards, my child will come

In search of me and of a smile

Embedded in bricks and mortar.

The house itself shall fall apart,

Cars will enter the rose garden,

And a new highway will be built over it;

Only then, will my family and I, utterly freed from space

Will move to the sky,

To the best place to look upon

Strange people we have never met

With detachment,

Condescendence,

And nostalgia.

In the spring of 2000 the poet, actress, and journalist, Virginia Mateias published her first literary work: a poetry volume in Romanian entitled “Persistenta Memoriei” (The Persistence of Memory). Virginia was acknowledged by her literary critics as “an authentic and spontaneous poet.” “The Garden of My Youth,” translated in English by her daughter, is a poem from her new book “In Umbra Ingerului” (In the Shadow of the Angel).

Virginia’s biggest passions: nature escapades, and travelling with her daughter on the footsteps of lost civilizations.