Ilya Selvinsky
The Mighty Ocean

Eleven struck. Check the little clock
In the passenger lounge with disklike face.
A sunless day. But the air is not ashen:
A mist shot through with orange sparks.

The gold gathers, scintillating,
Caresses the cheek, wisplike, a hugeness —
As if blue foxes with golden eyes
Are passing close.

And this azure haziness floats,
Dry flashes of gold over murky depths —
As if the sun itself
Had suddenly turned blue.

How dull it is to render all more tractable,
Monolingual, enfeebled, tangless...
I should like to say, "Soleil Marin,"
And all I can say is "Marinated sun."

And for all I know, the poor reader
May imagine a hospitable house,
Where they eat the sun, like melon with tomatoes,
With capers and a bay leaf.

Gently surge the heavy waves
Of subtropical latitudes.
Upon them oilily play patterns
Like the letter "O," like the mouths of women.

They are whispering something. Lean down your ear!
(Who is it speaking? Stop, I say!)
What words have they molded?
What rumblings come from their guts?

Ring-shaped dances whirl —
Up down. Up down.
Oval "O's" agonize and stretch,
As though seeking my lips.

O, ocean, washing the cloud
Of oceanic precincts,
Fanning out to the side and about,
Teasing with its stinging ozone!

Check who stood before the mirror
Of these spaces, if only once:
In respiratory bladders he has carried off
A little of the night wind.

He will return to his city, squinting, bug-infested,
But eyes that have seen the borders
Of the mighty ocean
Will gaze out from under the covers.

He will start drawling his vowels. And will skim
Like a sailing vessel.
And the letters "O" will engage in a game,
Thundering like breakers across the pages.

Such a one will not succumb to some all-powerful angst,
Such a one will not be satisfied with puddles;
He will embrace Leninist horizons,
He will comprehend the revolution in depth.

Breathe in these lines. All is dust and decay.
But life is good, accursed!
Let this poem stand on your table
Like a glass full of ocean.

Translated by Daniel Weissbort