THE WHITE HOUSE

WASHINGTON

133018Feb 70

MEMORANDUM FOR MR SONNENFELDT

SUBJECT: "Sonnets from the Romanian"

Would you please note attached, and
inscription to HAK on flyleaf. If
acknowledgement in order, please handle.
Otherwise return for the never-never
land of the White House Central files.

RECEIVED

FEB 19 1970

CENTRAL FILES

THE LITTLE SONNET

The Sonnet is a poem of 14 stanzas characterized by a
regular pattern with respect to the number of lines - the first
two of four lines - the last two of three lines each.

The Sonnet was the creation of Italian poet Francesco Pe-
trarca (1304-1374).

The Sonnets of Shakespeare were composed along more
liberal lines.

My Sonnet - The Little Sonnet - is a poem of seven stan-
zas - arranged in all its possible combinations.

This new form of lyric poetry is neither a fragmentation of
the sonnet of Petrarca nor a literary extravagance.

Endeavoring to identify correspondents in nature, in the
lives of people, the ensemble of their actions, mathematical
elements, of numbers, I reached the conclusion that number
seven has more correspondents and larger senses than any other
number.

There are seven colors in the solar spectrum, days in a
week, wonders of the world, arts, the well fed and lean cows
of the Bible, the sins of man, and I ultimately decided that seven
shall be the number of stanzas in my sonnet.

If *The Sonnet of Petrarca* treats one or more ideas poetically
in a form of 14 stanzas; if *The Poem in One Verse* makes use
of less words which however still gives the reader a more de-
scriptive imagination: so also *The Little Sonnet* has its own
rules in seven stanzas, arranged in any metrical formula, in
order to suggest more poetical meanings than words would indi-
cate clearly, yet still succeeding to evidence correlation between
man and the universe.

The success or failure of my attempt to illustrate the fore-
going remains to be ultimately decided by the readers.

However, it remains certain that beyond my efforts the little
sonnet has been synthesized - the newest form of lyric poetry -
which I sincerely hope will be retained by literary history as a
modest enrichment of poetical thought and the diversification of
literary patrimony as a whole.

G. FLORAN

G. Floran was born in Silistea-Crucii-Dolj, Romania. His educa-
tion was completed in Bucharest and he started his writing career at
the age of 17 by working for many newspapers and magazines. He
is well-known for the stories and poetry he has written for children
which were published in two volumes and for which he won many
distinguished prizes. He has also written for the theatre, radio and
television and has done a socialological study of the "Romanian Peas-
ant Revolutions." He has written about "Romania and the Two World
Wars," the "Disappearance of Imperialism in this Century," "Presi-
dent Wilson, and the unity of the State of Romania." At present he
is writing about cities, events and personalities in today's America.

In 1944 he wrote for the National Peasant Party press, the news-
paper called DREPTATEA, which was led by Iuliu Maniu and Ion
Mihalache and directed by a well-known Romanian journalist, N.
Carandino. Mr. Floran not only is a talented writer but is one of the
most courageous Romanian journalists of his generation.

For several years he has worked on different types of encyclo-
pedias and has just finished writing "The Little Sonnets", which
represent the newest lyrical form of poetry.

Mr. Floran has been in the United States since January, 1969.
After having attended President Nixon's inauguration, he wrote a
vibrant poem called "Good Morning, America".

26 febbraio 1968

Illustre Signore,

ci è pervenuto, per il cortese tramite di Monsignor Tautu, un esemplare del suo volume "Sonete Mici".

L'opera, che appare ricca di materia e degna anche di attenzione per l'originalità del metro, è composta, secondo quanto apprendo da Mons. Tautu, con appassionato imppegno e vivo senso di poesia. La Biblioteca Vaticana l'accoglie volentieri, mentre, per mio mezzo, le porge auguri per un lavoro sempre più fecondo.

Con sensi di distinto ossequio mi creda

BIBLIOTHÈQUE NATIONALE

Entrées-Dons-SBD/

Paris le 22 mars 1968

Monsieur,

Le Service des Dons m'a fait savoir que vous aviez bien voulu
offrir à la Bibliothèque nationale un recueil poétique dont vous
êtes l'auteur et qui s'intitule: "Sonete, mici".

Je vous en remercie, mais ces poèmes étant dactylographiés,
ils ne peuvent malheureusement pas entrer dans les collections de
la Bibliothèque nationale. Ils seront néanmoins attribués à la
Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal qui est un Département de la Réunion des
bibliothéques nationales de Paris et qui pourra les conserver dans
ses collections consacrées à la poésie nouvelle.

Veuillez agréer, Monsieur, l'expression de mes sentiments
distingués.

Le Conservateur en chef
du Département des Entrées

Mme S. Honoré

Monsieur G. FLORAN
Str. Dionisie-Lupu, No. 54
BUCAREST 22
Roumanie

G. FLORAN

THE MOMENT

In the moment we have come,

in the moment we will leave,
when the shade to the earth will lean,
to hide in the soil, to smile through the
flowers,
to the blue sky, to the stars hidden behind
the clouds.

The moment vanishes in the infinite and
dies not.

Its flight cuts through darkness and sun.

The moment is the eternity we have not
reached.

-10-

LITTLE SONNETS

THE LAST TRAVEL

The last travel is the longest
I never have accomplished it
I do not know the moment when I will start it
the steps do surely want it and seek it.

On its track there is no dust
and neither does the shadow
come like a step, the steps it does not follow.

The last travel is without return.

-11-

G. FLORAN

THE DOG

The dog that does not bark has no master
The path is his - his footmarks remain
in the dust, that urge him to rove for bread,
for a bone or for a dog's master.

The dog is starving and in its tender eyes
appears the rabies that kills him.

Only the satiated dogs are furious.

-14-

G. FLORAN

THE BELL

The bell rings, the Big Bell,
The time answers it, the time is boiling
It puts out the silence, deep and cold,
The call that sings,
through our hearts is passing.

The men listen to the Big Bell
The sad moments, thudding, vanish to hell,
The lights are coming, here to ever dwell.

- 16 -

LITTLE SONNETS

MOTHER

When my mother my childhood bore
on her breast
of her song and her life I was
the only master,
her smile she has planted on my face,
serene petal
from which have grown my recollections
that worship her.

All her tears she has cried for me,
my heart only near hers had to throb,
but I cried for her only once.

-17-

LITTLE SONNETS

THE VINEYARD

By the sun I left my childhood
To guard my flowers and my vineyard;
When I came back in the autumn, tired,
My childhood grown gray I did find.

The grapes have ripened, my grapes;
Heart, sip their must and the wine do drink!

This rimy vineyard is my life!

— 19 —

G. FLORAN

THE DOLL

The doll with its icy look
- treasure of the tiny years -
is the same as ever;

only your steps are grayer,
when your tear caresses the toy
on its face you see your childhood
that you have lost in vain.

-20-

LITTLE SONNETS

THE TEAR

The tear is often weakness or joy
Who could sip its source?

From the birds it takes their song and career
From the day, the light, from dawn to eve.

On its boundless oceans do float,

and will float

The ships of our heart that are drowning
We remain, for it to caress our cheek.

-21-

LITTLE SONNETS

THE BOUNDLESSNESS

The boundlessness is only us
Light grafted on the slush
From the sun grown from every look
Under the warm streak of the slender dream.

The boundlessness is only us
Torents of life and of rains plenty
Under a rainbow of sky and eternity.

-25-

G. FLORAN

CONFESSION

I never have cried,
because I never did slay,
but neither that I have laughed
can I definitely say.

Yes, I once have laughed - but once only
when a flower a girl did give me.

That flower blossoms every morning
when the sky is of ice,
when it's sunny or it's misty
In the garden of my heart,
where the gardener is God.

-28-

LITTLE SONNETS

CINDERS

Upon the hearth the cinders lie cold
Their last spark burnt out.
The wind has hastened
To blow aside both door and window.

He would steal the cinders,
But wind scatters not times ashes,
Nor doth the earth drain them.

-29-

G. FLORAN

FLIGHT

The birds of life have come
And made their nest near the sun,
The birds of life away will fly
Alone like they have come.

They will fly all into the infinite
In a lofty course of light,

They will fly and come no more.

-30-

G. FLORAN

OBLIVION

I have forgotten when my first laugh occurred,
Also when I first wept, this instant I know
Time kills it casting its shadow which is oblivion
Serene like the salt which covers the sea.

White as the light, solely beside oblivion
Hope grows in which nothing is hard.

If we should not forget, we should forever weep.

-32-

LITTLE SONNETS

THE EYES

How many tears have clustered in the eyes
of those who are no more,
How many flowers send their smile
from earth's bosom to'rds heaven?

The wind alone has counted them
under the solar eye
When eternity has gathered them in silence,
as a gift.

The eyes of light seek for me and
I long for them,
I want to offer a smile, to give them a kiss -
wherefrom shall I get them?
For darkness has hidden them behind
its black and cold wall.

-33-

LITTLE SONNETS

NOTHING

I do not know how many stars the heaven
holds,
Nor the amount of water which ebbs and
flows in seas,
Nor how many are the men who perish
in the peak of all time.

I do not know wherefrom we come,
whether we come,
Nor how many flowers rejoice under
this small sky,
Nor if we are born when we die.

If one knows anything, surely one knows
nothing.

- 35 -

G. FLORAN

THE BREAD

I used to knead the mud and to winnow
the dust,
I used to sow blood in the furrow by hand,
Embraced by the sun and wept upon
by the stars,
Thus our bread used to grow in heavy
spikes.

From the dull hearth seldom were we
greeted
By a meal, more seldom even our hunger
was stilled,
We used to beg for it in daily prayers.

-36-

G. FLORAN

THE WALNUT TREE

I used to hang my joy onto the leaded boughs
And to watch the stars growing out of the soil.
Childhood used to take shelter behind the
large trunk
Whenever father's anger was after it.

Near the aged walnut tree of the past, I have
forgotten
The things known to yesterday's child,
now a man at last.

My steps forever lead me in search of the tree
of former days.

-38-

LITTLE SONNETS

THE HEART

We all carry the sun in our hearts
He rises in our looks when we awake
And leaves our hearts when we are dead.

When the sun mounts above us, we have time
When he ascends on our sky and grows
our heart dreams, sings and loves.

The heart is life, happiness and time.

-39-

G. FLORAN

THE CHILD

To ORY

In its deep look I see the coming days
Its cheek as white as the warm crumb of bread,
A limpid mirror in which the heart grows
Basking in the smile that time attempts
to measure.

The child plays with life, with all her shadows,
Fear has not crossed as yet the threshold
of its being
Nor has hatred sprouted her black
petalled thistle.

-40-

LITTLE SONNETS

THE LAST MOMENT

I am waiting at the fringe of light
In order to bow to the last moment,
if it leaves.

I am waiting to gather the last flower
of the garden
And to adorn the last moment which will pass.

Lasting like eternity is this last moment!
Time does not carry it under its wing either.
I stand alongside and wait to hear
time's chimes.

-41-