Having had too little sleep.
8
Wind
I’m no more, but you’re still alive,
And the wind, complaining, weeping,
Sways the forest and the dacha,
Not each pine tree separately,
But all in their entirety,
With all the boundless distances,
Like the hulls of sailing ships
On the smooth surface of a harbor.
And it’s not out of mere bravado,
Nor out of pointless fury, but
So as in anguish to find words
To make for you a lullaby.
9
Hops
Under a willow twined with ivy
We seek shelter from the rain.
Our shoulders are covered by a raincoat,
And my arms are twined about you.
I was wrong. These thick bushes
Are wound not with ivy, but with hops.
Better, then, let’s take this raincoat
And spread it out wide under us.
10
Indian Summer
The currant leaf is coarse as canvas,
There’s laughter in the house and the clink of glass,
There’s chopping there, and pickling, and peppering,
And cloves are put into the marinade.
The forest, like a scoffer, flings this noise
As far away as the precipitous slope
Where the hazel grove burnt by the sun
Looks as if a bonfire’s heat had scorched it.
Here the road descends into a gully,
Here you feel pity for the dry old snags
And for the poor ragpicker, Mistress Autumn,
Who sweeps it all down into the ravine.
And because the universe is simpler
Than some clever thinker might suppose,
Because the grove is feeling so crestfallen,
Because it is all coming to its end.
Because it is senseless to stand blinking
When everything before you is burnt down,
And the white autumnal soot
Draws its cobwebs across the window.
There’s a way from the garden through the broken fence,
And it loses itself among the birches.
Inside there’s laughter and the noise of housework,
And the same noise and laughter far away.
11
A Wedding
Cutting through the yard outside,
Guests came to make merry
In the bride’s house until dawn
With a concertina.
Back behind the masters’ doors,
Doubled with felt lining,
The snatches of small talk died down
Between one and seven.
Just at dawn, the deep of sleep,
Slumber, slumber, slumber,
The accordion struck up afresh
Going from the wedding.
The accordionist poured out anew
Music from his squeeze box,
The clap of hands, the flash of beads,
The din of merrymaking.
And again, again, again
The chattering chastushka
Burst right into the sleepers’ bed
From the joyous feasting.
And one woman white as snow
Amidst the noise and whistling
Floated again like a peahen
Swaying her hips in rhythm.
Tossing back her haughty head,
And with her right hand waving,
She went dancing down the road—
Peahen, peahen, peahen!
Suddenly the heat and noise of play,
The stomping of the round dance,
Went plunging into Tartarus
And vanished in a twinkling.
The noisy yard was waking up,
And the busy echo
Mixed itself into the talk
And the peals of laughter.
Into the sky’s immensity,
A whirl of blue-gray patches,
A flock of pigeons went soaring up,
Rising from the dovecote.
Just as if someone half-asleep
Suddenly remembered
To send them, wishing many years,
After the wedding party.
For life is only an instant, too,
Only the dissolving
Of ourselves, like the giving of a gift,
Into all the others.
Only a wedding that bursts its way
Through an open window,
Only a song, only a dream,
Only a blue-gray pigeon.
12
Autumn
I’ve let the family go its ways,
All those close to me have long dispersed,
And the usual solitude
Fills all of nature and my heart.
And so I’m here with you in the cabin,
In the unpeopled and deserted forest.
The paths and trails, as in a song,
Are half submerged in undergrowth.
Now the log walls gaze in sorrow
At us alone. We never promised
To take the obstacles, if we perish,
We shall do it openly.
We sit down at one, get up at three,
I with a book, you with your sewing,
And at dawn we won’t have noticed
How at some point we stopped kissing.
Rustle, leaves, rustle and fall
Still more splendidly and recklessly,
Let yesterday’s cup of bitterness
Brim over with the anguish of today.
Attachment, attraction, loveliness!
Let’s be scattered in September’s noise!
Bury yourself in autumnal rustling!
Freeze in place, or lose your mind!
You shed your dress in the same way
A grove of maples sheds its leaves,
When you fall into my embrace
In your robe with silken tassels.
You are the blessing of a fatal step,
When life’s more sickening than illness,
Yet courage is the root of beauty,
And that’s what draws us to each other.
13
A Tale
Once in olden times,
In a faery land,
A horseman made his way
Over the thorny steppe.
He was hastening to battle,
And far across the steppe,
Out of the dust a forest
Darkly rose to meet him.
An aching in his bosom,
A gnawing in his heart:
Fear the watering place,
Tighten the saddle girth.
The rider did not listen
And rode on at full speed,
Going ever faster
Towards the wooded knoll.
Turning at the barrow,
He entered a dry gap,
Passed beside a meadow,
Rode over a hill.
And finally reached a hollow,
And by a forest path
Came upon animal footprints
And a watering place.
And deaf to any warning,
And heedless of his sense,
He led his steed down the bankside
To water him at the stream.
———