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Ioana Pârvulescu
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things will take place here.
Or perhaps I will never reach
you, although that would
not sadden me.
But look how I finally raise
my voice to the heavens,
and I pray for both you,
those afar, and for myself, I
pray here, to this silver icon,
within whose casing can be
seen with the naked eye
the head of a woman and
the smaller head of a child:
I pray for your health, your
welfare, and that you not
be punished, as I am. I pray
that you have an old age
as beautiful and soothing
as roses. I pray that, if you
hear a man’s voice, you will
understand. I pray out loud:
‘Thou, the Relentless, spare
us, spare me, release me
from this net in which I am
tangled, that I might find
a tear in the net and swim
into the open sea.’ I pray:
‘Merciful one, have mercy.’
One day, I am sure, I will
come to you somehow and
you will hear me again. I
don’t know why I am here,
in a church, in front of an
icon. I don’t know why I am
shut up here, in the frozen
silver of a world that I did
not wish for, just as you,
whatever you might say, are
from birth shut up as if in a
prison, as if in a buttery net
or as if in a birdcage, in a
world that you did not wish
for, did not know, and have
no way of controlling. You
thrash around in vain. We
are prisoners, condemned,
each in his own world, each
in his own solitude. Why
can you not see me? I am
fettered in the frozen silver
of the icon of a world that
perhaps no longer is. I try
to see you there, from the
picture frame of my present
day, and if you fall silent for
an instant, like the waters