Boris Pasternak
Improvisation

A flock of keys I had feeding out of my hand,
To clapping of wings and croaking and feathery fight;
On tiptoe I stood and stretched out my arm, and the sleeve
Rolled up, so I felt at my elbow the nudging of night.

And the dark. And a pond in the dark, and the lapping of waves.
And the birds of the species I-love-you that others deny
Would be killed, so it seemed, before the savage black beaks,
The strong and the strident, were ever to falter and die.

And a pond. And the dark. And festive the palpitant flares
From pipkins of midnight pitch. And the boat's keel gnawed
By the wave. And always the greedy noise of the birds
Who fighting over the elbow fluttered and cawed.

The gullets of dams were agurgle, gulping the night.
And the mother-birds, if the fledglings on whom they dote
Were not to be fed, would kill, so it seemed, before
The roulades would die in the strident, the crooked throat.

Translated by Babette Deutsch