Boris Pasternak
He simply darts about in rags with a pianist...

Sleep on a Summer’s Night
(Five Verses)

3

He simply darts about in rags with a pianist
With oblique detours falling down his shoulders.
The basket and crumbled man drag on miserably
And the grand piano with raised lid vegetates.

Along the buildings he hangs out with a pack
Of rag pickers and finding a treasure in the trash heap,
A storm hangs up his cloud above the brickworks
Like coveralls on a clothes hanger in a summer closet.

And the thunderstorm stretches out from
A military map alongside a water flask,
To the grand piano, with the usual heavy humidity
Towering over the stifling summer capital.

And when it arrives fully inconspicuous,
Dying of thirst, the thunderstorm with four
Leaps throws itself against the cement barrels,
Shaking boughs from the roar of its downpour.

Translated by Don Mager