Bulat Okudzhava
I feel the need for someone I can pray to...

I feel the need for someone I can pray to.
Imagine that a common lowly ant
Was overcome by yearning for a way to
Prostrate himself—as humble supplicant.

At peace no more, dispirited, frustrated
So all the world appeared to him mundane.
A goddess in his image he created
And worshipped her; his prayers were not in vain.

For when his days of prayer had numbered seven,
She did appear to him one winter’s night
Without a single augury from heaven…
The jacket that she wore was far too light.

Forgetting all the past – both pain and pleasure,
He opened wide the door out to the street
And kissed her hands, chapped raw from wind and weather,
And then the shabby slippers on her feet.

Two shadows moved like dancers in the entry.
And wordlessly communion seemed to flow.
And they were fair and wise like heaven’s gentry,
But sad like mortal folk on earth below.

Translated by Lydia Razran Stone