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In memory of Roxie

 In memory of Roxie At the borderlands of Dewachen, the pure land of Buddha Amitabha, there is a peculiar stretch of land. It is reserved mainly for the dogs of people who practice the Dharma. There are predominantly dogs on that land, but exceptions occur. Occasionally, one could see the glimpse of some well-behaved cats, who keep themselves to themselves, and even a snake or two could be found, after the story of the White Snake came to be known. The dogs have some memories of their humans reciting sadhanas and prayers, they remember the mantras whispered in their fluffy ears; the memories of the smell of burning incense lingers on the tips of their noses; the taste of the tormas they somehow managed to snatch from the shrine still coats their tongs. All those conditions accumulated together produce the little dog paradise in which everything is as it should be in the world of dogs: The tennis balls are there for a chase whenever needed, and when they fly, they murmur softly...
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At the End of 2022

 

Another year's leaving! 


I believed... I wanted... and I lost some things ...

I kept on falling, getting up... 

I cried out of joy... and out of sadness... 

I kept forgetting... and forgiving... 

I smiled... and I was sad... 

I had my ups... I had my downs... 

But kept on going forward...

Some things I lost... 

And I received some things... 

One thing however now I know with certanty:

As the years pile in person's life, 

the list of things that one desires shrinks.

And at the end there is only what cannot be bought with money left. 


Valery Petrov






This is a very imperfect translation of a short poem of the Bulgarian poet Valery Petrov (1919-2014), who is revered as the master of modern Bulgarian poetry. A poet, a translator, a journalist and a script writer, he was very well known and loved in Bulgaria. When I was a student, we knew his lyrics by hearth and often recited them out laud. In spite his Socialist believes, he became at odds with the Communist party after refusing to sign an official petition denouncing the awarding of Nobel Prize for literature to Solzhenitsyn in 1970. He was not allowed to publish so instead he took on translating the complete works of Shakespeare in verse - a colossal work that took him 10 years to finish. His relationship with the post Communist regime in Bulgaria did not seem to be much better either and in his later poems he openly refers to mafia-style capitalism in present-day Bulgaria. Petrov died in 2014 at age of 92 and although he said in one of his poems "There’s nothing in our life today that makes me happy to have lived to 92', the people of Bulgaria are grateful that he lived that long and gave us not only his poetry but also his wonderful translations and his love to Bulgarian language. As he puts it in an interview, his only regret is 'that my language is so small that I can’t show its beauty to the world'.

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