A moongate in my wall

1958

535. Imitation [239]

A rose quartz vase shone on her dresser, and
the sandalwood immortals stood, all seven,
imported from a pine and dragon land
once governed by the Son of Heaven.

Upon her cold blue wall
was hung a single silken-tasseled scroll
brush-painted on parchment,
with craggy mountains and a waterfall
— the prized possession of her studio apartment.

And, head benignly bowed, Kwan-Yin in jade
graced her teak night stand and her mystic soul.
Yet somehow this decor forever made
the impression of stage props for a miscast role.

As if these things were images in a glass
that traveling by reflect their face and pass
— a hollow echo's alien report
from a forbidden city's empty court.

536. «Once on the Moika lived a man…» [240]

Once on the Moika lived a man —
an oldster — who had stacks of books,
and knew this one, that one. Yet
that's not the reason why my friend
would urge me — on the run — to come
and meet him, but because he thought
that meeting would bring joy to both.
We'd grasp each other in a flash,
we share one sorrow, speak one tongue,
the shade of a forgotten bard!
I planned to go so many times,
but rain, some business, or «too late»,
«not in the mood», «he's indisposed» —
and next I heard it: «He has died».
My visit cancelled now, for good,
and who can tell me «it's put off?»

[1950s]

537. The Snake

Silent all its life, it produces beautiful
music after death.

The earth is dry, the summer has been hot.
Dead russet stubble bristles in the rocks
of my small garden, few and pale the blooms
on gently tended shrubs.
The air is still.

Without a rustle over sand and clay,
graceful and grey, slithers a winding snake
and disappears between the cracks of stone,
small silent creature, harmless, in its home.

Night smoothes away day's blemishes and scars,
and grasses reach to feel her cooling hand.
I pick a banjo from my wall, to strum.
Its tightly covered snakeskin body sings.

[1950s]

538. Goodbye for Now [241]

For V.V.

You swerved from the road and you went away. I said goodbye to you,
but that was for now;
We will meet again, though we do not know yet where or how.

Perhaps in this room where I write. You will open the door
— oh you won't need to knock, you can hurry in as you have before
because I will always wait.

Or on some roseate bridge as I cross a golden strait
at sunset when over the bar
the white fog enters warily into the bay
you will ride in the other direction and I will see
a sudden glimpse of your face rushing toward me
expected and unexpected, as in a dream…

Or perhaps very far
in the hill of Manchuria covered with cedars and grapes on the lower
slopes,
where the tiger lilies (remember those tiger lilies?)
grow thick on the valley floor
you will wade toward me across the shallow mountain stream
— as before?

We shall meet again. You will see.
Someday our lives will find
a pattern familiar to us, a pattern so designed
as to bring us close somewhere in this vast world — oh, yes, vast still
though almost all discovered and charted, brook, tree and hill.

You and I
will catch up with one another walking perhaps outside
Shanghai
in a field near the Temple of Horrors where the purple idols stare
with bulging eyes…

And it may be too
as I turn the corner off Corraterie around the fountain where
geraniums flame
that you
will be doing the same
and you and I will meet
where the old watchmaker keeps his crack-in-the-wall on that cobblestone
street.

For every wall has a door. I shan't despair.

In Viipuri at Christmas I don't yet know what year
(or even century if we're still living here)
as I watch the skaters circle the pond blue frozen
when the stars begin to ring from the frost at some hour chosen
you will appear
somehow somewhere
in what shape? — even that is not given me to know.

Over the globe bright miniature flags pinned, saying
that we have stood, lived, walked together long ago
at each pricked point. We will meet again
because 1 know that you, not only I,
visit them often nor ever will cease to fly
to all these places or cross the sea by ship or earth by train
and even jog by donkey on covered cart over the parched and unpaved
China plain…

And someday under one such miniature marker grown to be
a banner swaying
in the blue wind across the entire sky
you will meet with me
and then… after th at… only then we will say
goodbye.

7 June 1963

539. «My dear, my dear…»

My dear, my dear,
Now that I have to go, and know I'm going,
There are so many things I have to say —
So many things that, without knowing.
I've left unfinished here
Till this last day —

Sit near me, listen, and perhaps together
We will recall, before I break the tether,
questions unanswered, prayers unspoken,
And if there is no time, perhaps my eyes
Will leave for you a token
Of sunlit skies
That we have watched together, and of dreams
That I have shared with you, and you with me!

239

Kwan-Yin: Guanyin in contemporary transcription, the Chinese goddess of mercy, literally «the one who listens to sounds», i.e., to requests and supplications.

240

Moika Street is in St. Petersburg. Variants in the manuscript: in the second line «an oldster — he had loads of books», in the third line «and knew so many people. Yet», and in the eighth line «We'd grasp each other just like that».

241

Por V.V. see nole on poem 54. Variants in (he manuscript: in the first line of (he first stanza «You turned from the road and w ent away. I said goodbye to you, but that was for now"; in the first line of the third stanza «Or on some bridge as I cross a golden strait"; in the fourth and fifth lines of the third stanza «I will suddenly see / a glimpse of your face rushing toward me». Temple of Horrors: a temple in Shanghai. Corraterie: see note on poem 393.

Viipuri: also known as Vyborg, a city and port in the Gulf of Finland, the «eastern capital» of Finland, seized by the Soviet Union in 1940.