Evgeny Evtushenko
The catkin from an alder tree

To D.Batler

The instant a catkin
    falls down on my palm from an alder
or when a cuckoo
    gives a call, through the thunder of train,
attempting to give explanation to living
    I ponder
and find it impossible
    to understand and explain.

Reducing oneself
    to a speck of a star-dust is trivial,
but certainly wiser
    than being affectedly great,
and knowing one's smallness
    is neither disgrace nor an evil,
it only implies our knowledge
    of greatness of fate.

The alder-tree catkin is light
    and so airy and fluffy;
you blow it away, —
    and the world will go wrong overnight.
Our life doesn't seem
    to be petty and trifling
for nothing in it is a trifle
    and nothing is slight.

The alder-tree catkin
    is greater than any prediction,
and he who has quietly broken it
    won't be the same.
We cannot change everything now
    by our volition,
the world tends to change anyway
    with the change of ourselves.

And so we transform
    to assume quite a different essence
and go on a voyage
    to a desolate land, far from home,
we don't even notice
    and don't realize our presence
on board an entirely different ship,
    in a storm.

And when you are seized
    with a feeling of hopeless remoteness,
away from the shores
    where the sunrise amazed you at dawn,
my dear good friend, don't despair
    and please don't be hopeless, —
believe in the black frightening harbors,
    so strange and unknown.

A place, when remote, may be frightening
    but not when it's near.
There's everything there:
    eyes, voices, the lights and the sun...
As you get accustomed
    the creak of the shadowy pier
will tell you that there're can be more
    piers and harbors than one.

Your soul clears up,
    with no malice against the conversion.
Forgive all your friends
    that betrayed you, or misunderstood.
Forgive your beloved one
    if you don't enjoy her affection,
allow her to fly off your palm
    like a catkin, for good.

And don't put your trust in a harbor
    that gets too officious.
An endless and harbourless vast
    is what you must have on the brain.
If something should keep you pinned down
    just get off the hinges
And go
    on a lasting disconsolate voyage once again.

"Whenever will he come to reason?" —
    some people may grumble.
You don't have to worry,
    you know that one cannot please all.
The saying that "all things must pass"
    is a treacherous babble
if all things must pass,
    then it isn't worth living at all.

What can't be explained
    isn't really absolute nonsense.
So don't be embarrassed
    by revaluation of things, —
There won't be a fall nor a rise
    in the prices of our life since
the price of a thing of no value
    remains as it is

...Now why do I say it?
    Because a cuckoo, silly liar,
predicts
    that I'm going to live a long life
Now why do I say it?
    Well, there is an alder-tree flower,
a catkin, which, quivering,
rests on my palm as if live...

Translated by Alec Vagapov