People don’t laugh at funerals,
except maybe in their hearts.
For as long as the speeches are ringing out,
breathe evenly.
And measure against veracity
the tears or the praise,
knowing that justice
is quietly waiting in the comer.
На похоронах не смеются,
разве только в душе.
Покуда раздаются
речи, мерно дыши.
И замеряй на правдивость
слезы или хвалу,
зная, что справедливость
тихо ждет в углу.
«One fine day / a tiny laddie / came / and asked his dad: / “Could you tell me, / Daddy, / what is good / and what is bad?” / All his daddy said / ...»
«Over dull grey wastes of water / winds are massing darkening storm-clouds. / There ‘twixt clouds and surging sea-waves / proudly soars the Stormy Petrel, / darting sheer like jet-black lightening. / Now he skims the foam with wing-tip, / now — and arrow shooting cloudward, — / he...»
«There, where the sunrise is sprinkling / Water of red where the cabbage bed sits. / The small maple nuzzling his mother / Impatiently sucks her green tits.»
«Snow gone, mounds of clay are drying. / Mold of mushrooms on the foothills. / On the plains the wind is dancing — / Like a gentle small red donkey. Smells of pine and pussy willow... / Heaven sometimes sighs — and dozes. / And a sparrow reads his psalter / At the pulpit of the fore...»