And the next time, a deaf-mute —
I will come to a world where I give a poem to everyone, give everyone my hearing.
Indeed it’s all the same — what they say — I don’t understand.
Indeed it’s all the same — who can make it out? — what I say.
Forbid me God — again Corinna
arrives in this region, where people are harder than ice, ice floes harder than cliffs.
Like a deaf-mute — with such a long
braid—down to the floor! — so long
you wouldn’t recognize her.
А следующий раз — глухонемая
Приду на свет, где всем свой стих дарю, свой слух дарю.
Ведь всё равно — что говорят - не понимаю.
Ведь всё равно — кто разберёт? - что говорю.
Бог упаси меня — опять Коринной
В сей край придти, где люди твёрже льдов,
а льдины — скал.
Глухонемою — и с такою длинной —
— Вот — до полу — косой, чтоб не узнал!
«I bid farewell to everything I was, / everything I despised, disliked, and loved. And now, a new life begins, / I bid farewell to yesterday’s skin. About me, I no longer need any news. / I bid goodbye — right to the marrow. At last, I look down on what I was, / see my separate soul, n...»
«The land swallows itself whole / and nuzzles the heavens, / patches up its memory’s holes / with grasses and a man. The grass is under horse’s hoofs, / the soul in a box of bones, / and only the word, the word alone, / looms under the full moon. Like Nineveh, the steppe stretches...»
«And now summer has left / as if it never came at all. / It’s warm still where the sun falls. / But it’s not enough. Whatever I wanted to happen / fell right into my hands / like a five-fingered leaf. / But it’s not enough. The just and unjust / played their necessary part / a...»
«Now Summer is gone / And might never have been. / In the sunshine it’s warm, / But there has to be more. It all came to pass, / All fell into my hands / Like a five-petalled leaf, / But there has to be more. Nothing evil was lost, / Nothing good was in vain, / All ablaze with cle...»