HILARY ELFICK

Flight

 

We float with no more fuss than the flaring of a flame,
the Vercors slopes and trees flat and smooth below,
cows shuffling, unimpressed, and now through the warm haze,
Mont Blanc rising to meet us, the broad plains of the
Massif Central hovering way beyond the cliffs,
and if that mist should clear why then, we’d see the sea.

Below us, cars and tractors cease to move.
The world’s come out into the fields to watch
and we have our fifteen minutes that we crave,
but generous as the opening sky, a hundred, even more
while below this burgeoning of bright red silk
our feet are standing in a basket fit for laundry

and we’re not allowed to drift, we’re not allowed to glide
into another valley where we can’t be found, only float higher
into no place, no wind, nowhere, and we are levitating,
as if we needed to escape, as if we still are driving through
that terror that still wakes us in the dark, that dream
that still comes back when now there is no reason.

Roxana-Monica Mîndrican

Hilary Elfick
 

Zbor

Un zbor linistit ca o flacara ce palpaie,
dedesubt copacii si vaile din Vecros, intinse si netede,
vacile plimbandu-se alene, plictisite, si prin aburul caldut
varful Mont Blanc ne intampina, pajistile vaste
ale Masivului Central plutesc dincolo de stanci,
daca se-mprastie ceata vom vedea marea.

Sub noi masinile si tractoarele incremenesc*.
lumea a iesit pe camp sa priveasca
iar noi avem cele cincisprezece minute mult ravnite,
dar vazduhul generos ne ofera inca o suta
in timp ce dedesubtul acestei inmuguriri stralucitoare de matase stacojie
picioarele noastre stau intr-un cos ca de rufe

si nu ne e permis sa cadem in deriva, sau sa alunecam
intr-o alta vale unde vom fi de negasit, putem doar sa ne inaltam
spre nicaieri, unde nici vantul nu adie si ne supunem levitatiei,
de parca-am vrea sa evadam, si inca am goni
cuprinsi de acea spaima ce ne trezeste-n noapte, acel vis
ce inca ne bantuie acum cand totul a trecut.
 

*In the original text “cease to move”. I chose “incremenesc” (to become completelt still/ inert) because it is in agreement with the whole atmosphere which the poem creates. For instance in the last stanza we could observe that “nici vantul nu adie”(there is “no wind”- in the original text).