FIONA SAMPSON

The Ice Writer

Out into the cold
goes the line you’ll draw
across this pond.

Under the deep dark
its track runs true
as a dream: darknesses

of line and sky, moving
towards each other
bruised and blue.

Listen. Night is its own weather.
A stillness gloves
sheet-ice and sedge, that cluster

of willows above
the darkening rim. When
you break the silence and move,

alarm thuds an ice drum
tuned tight as the skin
that binds your bones –

In an elegant
enlarging lens, silver, ornée, you
and the moon drown

together, like Swinburne’s sexy noyades… Go
on, then: where glass
waits to splinter, and every step’s new,

your skates hush-hushing
each stroke onwards
against your water-double – each thrust

into that broken mirror
where moonlight
hurls your shadow forward –

And the line behind you brightens
in crystal then darkens to damp
as you draw it out



of your perfect future, that blank
you erase
with every turn as you bank

on a widening curve you recognise –
it’s your own music:
and the ice-star at your foot pulses alive

to the hollow of your wrist,
your owl-hoot cry.
Night-beasts whisper

their weird alarms as, arms wide
with air, you follow the line you’ve yet to make:
this water-snake the sky

also traces; the border joining these dark
twinned weights,
night and water.

…And it’s you, you, bruising
the dream membrane
that holds them apart –

when out into the pond’s
cold eye
you go, alone.

Lavinia Zainea

Scriitorul de gheata

Linia pe care o vei desena
pe lacul acesta
se pierde in frig.

In bezna
urmele ei se adeveresc
ca un vis: intunecimi

de linie si vazduh, indreptandu-se
una spre cealalta
invinetite si albastre.

Asculta. Noaptea e propria sa vreme.
Linistea invesmanteaza
foaia-gheata si rogoz, acel ciorchine

de salcii deasupra
cadrului intunecat. Cand
rupi tacerea si te misti,

alarma e o bufnitura de toba
acordata strans ca pielea
ce-ti uneste oasele-

Intr-o eleganta
lupa, argintie, ornata, te
ineci alaturi de luna

precum acele noyades atragatoare ale lui Swinburne…
Continua, deci: acolo unde sticla
e pe punctul de a se sparge, si fiecare pas e nou,

unde patinele tale acopera
fiecare lovitura
impotriva dublului din apa-fiecare presiune

asupra acelei oglinzi sparte
unde lumina lunii
iti impinge umbra inainte-

Si linia din spatele tau se lumineaza
ca un crystal si apoi se intuneca
in timp ce o desenezi

in viitorul tau perfect, acel spatiu gol
pe care il stergi
cu fiecare miscare, contand pe
un viraj mai larg pe care il recunosti-
e propria ta muzica:
si steaua de gheata de la picioarele tale pulseaza plina de viata


spre incheietura
tipatul tau de bufnita.
Animalele noptii isi soptesc

alarmele lor ciudate, pe cand tu, cu bratele larg deschise
si goale, urmezi linia nedesenata inca:
sarpele acesta de apa pe care il traseaza

si cerul; granita ce uneste cele doua poveri
gemene, intunecate,
noaptea si apa.

…Si tu, tu esti cel care sfasie
membrana de vis
ce le desparte-

Cand te avanti singur
pe ochiul rece
al lacului.