All along the Smolensk Road trees rise and rise and rise.
All along the Smolensk Road posts stand mid trees, mid trees.
Just above the Smolensk Road I think those are your eyes:
Two cold evening stars, my two blue destinies.
All along the Smolensk Road the snow slaps face, slaps face.
We are driven from homes because work can't wait, can't wait.
But had there been more force in the pull of your embrace,
A shorter road might have conveyed me through the night.
All along the Smolensk Road trees rise and rise and rise.
All along the Smolensk Road posts hum till dawn, till dawn.
Just above the Smolensk Road I think those are your eyes:
Two cold evening stars, two blue stars look down, look down.
Ж. Б.
По Смоленской дороге — леса, леса, леса.
По Смоленской дороге — столбы, столбы, столбы.
Над Смоленской дорогою, как твои глаза, —
две вечерних звезды — голубых моих судьбы.
По Смоленской дороге — метель в лицо, в лицо,
все нас из дому гонят дела, дела, дела.
Может, будь понадежнее рук твоих кольцо —
покороче б, наверно, дорога мне легла.
По Смоленской дороге — леса, леса, леса.
По Смоленской дороге — столбы гудят, гудят.
На дорогу Смоленскую, как твои глаза,
две холодных звезды голубых глядят, глядят.
«Hum has died away. I’m going out / On the stage, and leaning on a post, / Sensing in an echo's distant sound / What there is to happen down the road. Through the oodles of focused opera glasses, / I‘m confronted by the gloom of night. / If it is an option, Abba! Father! / I implore ...»
«It's February. Weeping take ink. / Find words in a sobbing rush / For February, while black spring / Burns through the rumbling slush. And take a cab. Ride for a rouble / Through wheel racket and bell's throbbing / To where the downpour makes more din / Than the sound of ink and sobbing...»
«Dreadful! It drips and it listens — / whether it's all alone in the world / crushing a twig like lace at the window, / or is someone watching? Palpable, though, is the pressure / of porous earth's taut swellings, / and far off, audible as in August, / midnight ripens in fields. No, n...»
«The terrible! — After each drop, it stays / All ears: is it sole still, trying / To squeeze the branches like wrinkled lace, / Or is a witness prying? But, choking out loud from the heavy weight / Of swelling, the spongy soil widens, / And heard far away, as in August late, / The ...»