David Samoylov
Let’s go to the city, where we...

Let’s go to the city, where we
Sometimes would stay on occasion.
And leave the past behind,
Like luggage at the station.

Let the past try to safeguard itself,
For us, there’s no preservation.
We’ll feel some sadness, but more
New vigor and strength and elation.

Already the autumn has ripened
To new shades of blue in the sky.
A bird, a cloud, and smoke,
Above us, unhurried, fly by.

The snow will come. The rustle
Of foliage is soon to be over.
The hemisphere in autumn
Is spacious, vast, and open.

The frost has glued together,
As though a swallow’s nest,
All that was once unsettled
Disheveled, broken, stressed.

And so, November’s come,
Enormous, light and regal.
This city stands, as though,
Unoccupied by people, —

There’s so much sky above us,
And gardens right beside us,
That we don’t notice people,
As strangers and outsiders...

O, I understood so late
The meaning of existence,
And why the heart is pumping
Red blood with all its pistons,

And that I shouldn’t feared
Those passionate sensations,
And that I should have lived
Without reservation...

Translated by Andrey Kneller