Once again I am bending my knees before you,
Having noticed your garland of stars far apace.
Let me know, dear Christ, that not all things are ghosts,
Allow me, at last, not a ghost to embrace!
I am tormented by these long days. With no worry,
With no aim, in half-darkness, I am so lost..
I can love ghosts, but can one survive on this planet
For eighteen years solely on ghosts?
And they sing, and they write, joy is in the beginning!
Blossom with your full jubilant soul!
Isn't it true, there's no happiness without sorrow?
I don't have any friends save the dead, none at all.
Those enflamed with another belief for all time, is it so,
From the world in empty desert had hid?
No, I don't need the smiles gained at the cost
Of profaning the highest shrines of my creed.
I don't need bliss that comes at the price of debasement.
I don't need love! I'm sorrowful — not for her.
In the quiet kingdom of beloved ghosts, only ghosts —
Give me my soul to give back, Savior!
И опять пред Тобой я склоняю колени,
В отдаленьи завидев Твой звёздный венец.
Дай понять мне, Христос, что не всё только тени
Дай не тень мне обнять, наконец!
Я измучена этими длинными днями
Без заботы, без цели, всегда в полумгле…
Можно тени любить, но живут ли тенями
Восемнадцати лет на земле?
И поют ведь, и пишут, что счастье вначале!
Расцвести всей душой бы ликующей, всей!
Но не правда ль: ведь счастия нет, вне печали?
Кроме мёртвых, ведь нету друзей?
Ведь от века зажжённые верой иною
Укрывались от мира в безлюдьи пустынь?
Нет, не надо улыбок, добытых ценою
Осквернения высших святынь.
Мне не надо блаженства ценой унижений.
Мне не надо любви! Я грущу — не о ней.
Дай мне душу, Спаситель, отдать — только тени
В тихом царстве любимых теней.
«We’ve done enough, we’ve said enough — / let’s sit in silence, without smiling; / low-lying clouds are shedding snow / and heaven’s light is slowly fading. The brittle willows rage and split / in an unspeakable pitched battle. / "Until tomorrow, then," I say. / "As for today, ...»
«At blazing noon, in Dagestan’s deep valley, / a bullet in my chest, dead still I lay, / as steam yet rose above my wound, I tallied / each drop of blood, as life now now seeped away. Alone I lay within a sandy hollow, / as jagged ledges teemed there, rising steep, / with sun-scorched pe...»
«We pronounced / the simplest, poorest words / as if they had never been said. / We were saying / sun, light, grass / as people pronounce / life, love, strength. Remembered how we cleared / that eternal, accursed glacier / from the city streets — and an old man / stamped his foot...»
«He did not return, even after his death, to / That ancient city he was rooted in. / Going away, he did not pause for breath / Nor look back. My song is for him. / Torches, night, a last embrace, / Fate, a wild howl, at his threshold. / Out of hell he sent her his curse / And in heaven ...»