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Mihai Ursachi

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The Parable of the Instant and the Listener Inside the Clock

. . . It seemed I existed inside a colossal grandfather clock: the small
         toothed wheels
(they were myriad) rustled like leaves; the great toothed wheels
                                                                                   snarled
and thundered, so loud they almost could not be heard.
Multiple systems of pulleys screeched and groaned periodically,
like victims of torture; at equal intervals,
hammer blows pounded with mighty power,
like the vowels in the word “dead.” And there were
other sounds, muffled, like prolonged insinuations,
late, self-consuming echoes and decisive syncopes. For an endless
                                                                                            time,
or perhaps in that second alone, it seemed
I became concentrated into hearing; although I was
only the tympanum meant to go on listening for all of eternity
and for each distinct instant.
In that very instant,
I heard, of a sudden: “This is the moment.”
“This is the moment, this is the moment, this is the moment.”
I consulted my little silver watch. It was that moment.

 

Mihai Ursachi (born in 1941) is one of Romania’s most honoured writers. He defected from Romania in 1981 after a term of imprisonment in solitary confinement, imposed because of an earlier attempt to escape by swimming the Danube. He went to America, taught swimming in California, and learned English whilst working as a garage mechanic in Austin and as German instructor at the University of Texas. He returned to Romania after the 1989 revolution, became Director of the National Theatre in Ias\i, but lost his post in 1992 because of his opposition to the government. In the same year he was awarded the Mihai Eminescu poetry prize, the first such award since the War.
Adam Sorkin is Professor of English at Penn State Delaware County. He has published thirteen books of literary translations, including Liliana Ursu’s The Sky Behind the Forest (with the poet and Tess Gallagher, 1997), which was shortlisted for the Weidenfeld Prize. His collaborative translations have appeared in nearly 200 literary magazines.
Ileana Orlich is Director of the Romania Program at Arizona State University at Tempe. She has published many essays on Romanian poets and prose writers.
Georgiana Farnoaga teaches Romanian at UCLA and has co-translated books of Romanian poetry and stories.
Doru Motz is a broadcaster, producer and simultaneous translator for the Voice of America in Washington, DC. He has published over forty books, and is also a typographer and designer of fonts.

Translated by Adam J Sorkin, Ileana Orlich

Page(s) 187-188

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