Arseny Tarkovsky
Before the leaves fall

Everyone's gone. All that’s left, at the parting,
Is the confusion of leaves outside.
Now I am left with as little as a rustling,
Mumbling of autumn in my house tonight.

Summer had slipped as a trembling needle
Out of the numbed hand of silence itself;
And disappeared in the darkness of bookshelves,
Somewhere in plaster behind the old wall.

If we start reckoning, I'll have no right for
Even the blaze of the leaves outside.
...Maybe the gravel continues to scatter
Under her cautious heals in the night.

There, in the outdoor troubling stillness,
Somewhere beyond my existence and dreams,
Covered in red, blue or gold — will be needless
Memory to her, needless memory of me...

Translated by Maya Jouravel