Ioan Flora

A Field Sparrow

Between the Timiş and the Danube, thickets of fog.

Mother seemed smaller to me, her body missing

between the boundaries of her gray clothes.

She complained of pain, much of it in her mind but almost none

in her belly.

She skipped like a field sparrow, never touching asphalt,

a smile in her slanted eyes, and seemed

as if there weren’t anything to tell me.

“Take my arm” – almost in a whisper –

“my feet feel like they’re freezing.”

My own steps sank knee-deep in the viscera

of the metropolis.

In small hops, Mother skipped like a blue field sparrow

captive in a cage.

Between the Timiş and the Danube, thickets of fog.

                                                                        8 November 1998

                                                                                    translated by

                                                                                    Adam J. Sorkin and Alina Cârâc

The I

The master says:

the true I dwells in my body and is used

either as object or as subject.

In The Blue Notebook, the master has recourse to

two categories of examples:

         a)  My right arm is broken.

              I have grown fourteen centimeters.

              The wind blows my hair about.

         b) I try to lift my arm.

              I think it will rain.

              I have a toothache.

Is this about me?

About increate Night and primordial Air?

Is this about the I?

                                                                                    translated by

                                                                                    Adam J. Sorkin and Alina Cârâc

Imperial, Eastern Roads

Sun-baked earthen houses, dry stone, windows and doors

filled in with mortar,

cattle and sheep, straw, manure, people crouched by the fire,

water boiling in a pail.

Trade routes, imperial, Eastern roads, clandestine

commerce in gold and opium, furs and brass,

goat tallow, dates, olives, silk and Persian carpets,

rapine, swords and bloodshed, burning brands.

Sleeplessness, sodden sky, blue and red beads,

silver earrings tear the snail of the ear.

From time to time

the tail of a comet, a pair of mules

burdened with wood, a woman with a star on her forehead.

Hybrid languages, the hajj.

                                                                                    translated by

                                                                                    Adam J. Sorkin and Elena Bortă