Bella Akhmadulina
For how many years along this street of mine have I...

For how many years along this street of mine have I
overheard those footsteps — of my friends leaving.
And the darkness outside my window draws pleasure
in witnessing every sluggish departure.

That is your stern character, Solitude, as
you flash an iron compass; bow coldly
now do you dose your circle round me
without attending to my useless protest.

Summon me, then, with some reward, since I
have become your creature, and console myself
with your favours; let me rest against you
and wash myself in the pale blue of your frost.

In your forest, on my rues, allow me to
reach the slow peak of one strained gesture in
your foliage, and raise the leaves to my face
so I may feel — to be desolate is a blessing.

Give me the quiet of your libraries,
severe melodies in concert halls;
wise power — that is the way we forger
those who are dead and those nor yet alive.

So I shall learn wisdom and sadness together,
and things will yield their bidden meanings up;
even Nature leaning on my shoulder
may reveal her childish secrets to me.

But out of all the darkness, rears, and the
forgetting of what is lost for ever,
the fine features of my friends will
appear briefly to me, before dissolving. 

Translated by Elaine Feinstein