Liliana Ursu
from An Island Where Evening Never Comes: A Cycle
An Island Where Evening Never Comes
“Look, the sky is within you if you are pure of heart.”
from one of the Fathers of the desert, 3rd century
I left the town behind me, trusting
the road would keep its mystery
perpetually.
It is a tender, familiar spring.
The apple trees beside me voice their beauty.
Their blossoms gaze into themselves
like young brides staring
into vast green mirrors
of sky. Their passionless confidence
calls to us.
Unreal green. Pure sky.
Peace runs to greet you
heralding the walls of a Monastery
surrounded, uplifted by trees
doubled in water.
At the centre of the disconsolate roar
within us – the blackbird –
that immaculate prayer.
Liliana Ursu has published seven collections of poems in Romania and works in Bucharest as an interviewer on literary topics for a national radio programme. Translations of her poems have appeared in about forty American and British literary journals, and two collections of her poems have been published in English translation: The Sky behind the Forest (Bloodaxe, 1996) and Angel Riding a Beast (Northwestern University Press, 1998). Since January 2000 she has been a writer-in-residence at the University of Louisville.
Michael M Naydan is Professor and Director of the Program in Slavic and East European Languages at The Pennsylvania State University, where he teaches Russian and Ukrainian Literature. He has published several collections of translations, notably from Tsvetaeva and from Skovoroda, and his translations have won many prizes.
Tess Gallagher is a poet and short-story writer; her published work includes Moon Crossing Bridge, Portable Kisses, and many other books of poems, essays and short stories.
Michael M Naydan is Professor and Director of the Program in Slavic and East European Languages at The Pennsylvania State University, where he teaches Russian and Ukrainian Literature. He has published several collections of translations, notably from Tsvetaeva and from Skovoroda, and his translations have won many prizes.
Tess Gallagher is a poet and short-story writer; her published work includes Moon Crossing Bridge, Portable Kisses, and many other books of poems, essays and short stories.
Translated by Michael M Naydan;Tess Gallagher; Lilian Ursu
Page(s) 192-193
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