translated from the Romanian by ADAM J. SORKIN with the poet)
from THE TRIUMPH OF THE WATER WITCH
(to be published by Bloodaxe Books, 1999)
IOANA IERONIM
translated from the Romanian by ADAM J. SORKIN with the poet)
from THE TRIUMPH OF THE WATER WITCH
(to be published by Bloodaxe Books, 1999)
THE BÂRSA LAND
At sunset parting the stalks of wheat like a wave, you sit, hidden from
the world,
as
poppies burn out with the bright flame of their instant and vanish.
In the same earth your slower flame, your very being, coiled within, reaches
as far
as the mountains--
everything flows towards the light.
The sun balances, poised quavering on the ridge of the stone cliffs--a divine
bird.
Out of its hesitation, airy gold floods the visible land--and the invisible.
The high wave of Europe breaks against the battlements of the Carpathians.
Ship
cathedrals sail through the fields lofting beyond the arms of young rock,
arched in defense, deceptively.
