Meditations have words that are soundless;
How I love to seek them in the silence!
It is necessary only that,
black and lifeless,
Night should forget itself more fully,
Night should forget itself faster
Among its sparse street lights,
Round the corner
Like a forsaken house...
Should forget itself among the quiet dining
Rooms above you, in the lilac-colored...
That from the tablecloth the trembling
Circle should not let down its yellow
Overflows, and gleamings of slowed hands
Should separate gray threads there.
And that you with anguish should separate
These threads one after the other, should
Separate and afterwards roll them up,
And with lilac openness the needle
Should go after the shining thread...
And then, unconcernedly bright,
With the quiet squeaking of straw
Hinges, carefully pinning the sheets.
There you too, Virtue, should fall sleep
Between confusedly tender skeins...
У раздумий беззвучны слова,
Как искать их люблю в тишине я!
Надо только,
черна и мертва,
Чтобы ночь позабылась полнее,
Чтобы ночь позабылась скорей
Между редких своих фонарей,
За углом,
Как покинутый дом…
Позабылась по тихим столовым,
Над тобою, в лиловом…
Чтоб со скатерти трепетный круг
Не спускал своих желтых разлитий,
И мерцанья замедленных рук
Разводили там серые нити,
И чтоб ты разнимала с тоской
Эти нити одну за другой,
Разнимала и после клубила,
И сиреневой редью игла
За мерцающей кистью ходила.
А потом, равнодушно светла,
С тихим скрипом соломенных петель,
Бережливо просты́ни сколов,
Там заснула и ты, Добродетель,
Между путанно-нежных мотков…
«You have gone. / Another world’s your / home, they say. / Into space… / You fly now / t’wards your stars’ collision. / Sober! / There, there’s no advance, no / beer as pay. / No, Yesenin, / this is / ...»
«You were my life sometime ago. / Then came the war, the devastation. / You vanished, leaving me alone, / Without a trace or explanation. When many years had passed me by, / Your voice awakened me by chance. / I sat and read Your Word all night / And came to life out of a trance. Since ...»
«The Tale of Tsar Saltan, of His Son, the Glorious and Mighty Knight Prince Guidon Saltonovich, and of the Fair Swan-Princess Three fair maidens, late one night, / Sat and spun by candlelight. / "Were our tsar to marry me," / Said the eldest of the three, / "I would cook and I would bake –...»
«I splashed some colours from a tumbler / and smeared the drab world with emotion. / I charted on a dish of jelly / the jutting cheekbones of the ocean. / Upon the scales of a tin salmon / I read the calls of lips yet mute. / And you, / could you have played a noc...»