Moved one of the Magi slightly to the left
Of the manger. He turned: from the threshold, like a guest,
The star of the Nativity looked in at the maiden.
19
Dawn
You meant everything in my destiny.
Then came war, devastation,
And for a long, long time there was
No word of you, no trace.
And after many, many years
Your voice has stirred me up again.
All night I read your Testament,
As if I were reviving from a faint.
I want to go to people, into the crowd,
Into their morning animation.
I’m ready to smash everything to bits
And put everybody on their knees.
And I go running down the stairs,
As if I’m coming out for the first time
Onto these streets covered with snow
And these deserted sidewalks.
Everywhere waking up, lights, warmth,
They drink tea, hurry for the tram.
In the course of only a few minutes
The city’s altered beyond recognition.
In the gateway the blizzard weaves
A net of thickly falling flakes,
And in order to get somewhere on time,
They drop their breakfast and rush off.
I feel for them, for all of them,
As if I were inside their skin,
I myself melt as the snow melts,
I myself knit my brows like morning.
With me are people without names,
Trees, children, stay-at-homes.
Over me they are all the victors,
And in that alone lies my victory.
20
Miracle
He was walking from Bethany to Jerusalem,
Already weighed down by sad presentiments.
The prickly brush on the steep hillside was scorched,
Over a nearby hut the smoke stood still,
The air was hot and the rushes motionless,
And the Dead Sea was an unmoving calm.
And in a bitterness that rivaled the bitterness of the sea,
He was going with a small throng of clouds
Down a dusty road to someone’s house,
Going to town, to a gathering of his disciples.
And he was so deep in his own thoughts
That the fields in their wanness smelled of wormwood.
All fell silent. He stood alone in the midst,
And the countryside lay flat, oblivious.
Everything mixed together: the heat and the desert,
And the lizards, and the springs and rivulets.
A fig tree rose up not far away
With no fruit on it, only leaves and branches.
And he said to it: “What good are you?
Is your stupor of any earthly use to me?
“I hunger and thirst, and you are a sterile blossom.
Meeting with you is more cheerless than with stone.
Oh, how galling you are and how ungifted!
Stay that way until the end of time.”
A shudder of condemnation ran down the tree,
Like a flash of lightning down a lightning rod,
And the fig tree was reduced to ashes.
If the leaves, the branches, roots, and trunk
Had found themselves a free moment at that time,
Nature’s laws might have managed to intervene.
But a miracle is a miracle, and a miracle is God.
When we’re perturbed, in the midst of our disorder,
It overtakes us on the instant, unawares.
21
The Earth
Spring comes barging loutishly
Into Moscow’s private houses.
Moths flutter behind the wardrobe
And crawl over the summer hats,
And fur coats are put away in trunks.
Pots of wallflowers and stock
Stand on the wooden mezzanines,
There’s a breath of freedom in the rooms,
And the garrets smell of dust.
And the street enjoys hobnobbing
With the nearsighted window frame,
And the white night and the sunset
Can’t help meeting by the river.
And in the corridor you can hear
What’s happening in the wide outdoors,
What April says to the dripping eaves
In a random conversation.
He can tell a thousand stories
About the woes of humankind,
And dawn feels chilly along the fences,
And draws it all out endlessly.
And that same mix of fire and fright
Outside and in our cozy dwellings,
And the air everywhere is not itself,
And the same transparent pussy willows,
And the same swelling of white buds
At the window and at the crossroads,
In the workshop and in the street.
Then why does the distance weep in mist,
And why does the humus smell so bitter?
In that precisely lies my calling,
So that the expanses won’t be bored,
So that beyond the city limits
The earth will not languish all alone.
It is for that my friends and I
Get together in early spring,
And our evenings are farewells,
Our little feasts are testaments,
So that the secret stream of suffering
Can lend warmth to the chill of being.
22
Evil Days
When in the last week
He was entering Jerusalem,
Thundering hosannas met him,
People ran after him with branches.
But the days grow more grim and menacing,
Love will not touch hearts.
Brows are knitted scornfully,
And now it’s the afterword, the end.
The sky lay over the courtyards
With all its leaden weight.
The Pharisees sought evidence,
Twisting before him like foxes.
And the dark powers of the temple
Hand him to the scum for judgment.
And with the same ardor as they praised him
Earlier, they curse him now.
The crowd from the lot next door
Peered in through the gates,
Jostling and shoving each other
As they waited for the outcome.
And a whisper crept through the neighbors,
And rumors came from all sides,
And childhood and the flight into Egypt
Were recalled now like a dream.
He remembered the majestic hillside
In the desert, and that height
From which Satan tempted him
With power over all the world.
And the marriage feast at Cana,
And the miracle that astonished the guests,
And the misty sea he walked on
To the boat, as over dry land.
And a gathering of the poor in a hovel,
And the descent into the dark cellar,
Where the candle died of fright
When the raised man stood up …
23
Magdalene