Andrei Voznesensky
Autumn in Sigulda

From the last carriage I watch the place go by,
goodbye,

goodbye my summer,
we must go,
axes stun the dacha now,
my house, nail up the timber,
goodbye,

my woods have lost their leaves,
they are empty and sad
like the case the music leaves
an accordion gone dead,

we are people,
we too are emptied out,
we issue,
as it is written,
out

from walls,
from mothers,
from women,
for ever, summer or winter,

goodbye dear mother,
at the windows
you grow translucent like a larva,
tired, tired with the days,
let us sit down together,

friends, enemies, live on,
adieu,
out from me now
whistling you run,
as I issue from you,

o my country, let us say our goodbyes,
I’ll be a star, a willow tree,
no weeping, no beggarly cries,
only my thanks that life could be,

at the butts with my 10 shots
I thought I’d knock up 100, but –
my thanks that I could not,
and thanks and thanks redoubled that

in my transparent shoulder-blades they thrust
the gifts of my vision, it fits
like the rubber
glove that trusts
a man’s red fist,

“Andrei Voznesensky” – so it will be,
and perhaps briefly neither word nor pet dog, but me,
here against the burning of your cheek,
“Andryushka”,

my thanks that we met in the fall
in these woods, you asked me something,
dragging your dog by its collar,
the dog struggling,
my thanks,

I have come to life again, my thanks for this autumn
when you made me see myself clear and plain,
the woman wakened us at eight, my
thanks for the holiday record we played
that groaned out its slangy jangle,
my thanks,

but o you are going away, going away,
as a train goes, you are going away,
out from my empty pores you are going away.
each of us goes, we separate, we go on our way,
was this house wrong for us, who can say?

you are near me and somewhere far off,
Vladivostok is no farther off,
I know our lives come round again
in friends and lovers, grass and grain,
changed into that, and those, and this,
nature abhorring emptiness,

my thanks for the leaves that are scattered,
a million spring to their relief,
my thanks for what your laws tell me,
but a woman is fluttering along the embankment
after the train like a fiery leaf!..

Help me!

Translated by Edwin Morgan