2
As I love to
kiss hands, and
to name everything, I
love to open
doors!
Wide — into the night!
Pressing my head
as I listen to some
heavy step grow softer
or the wind shaking
the sleepy and sleepless
woods.
Ah, night
small rivers of water rise
and bend towards — sleep.
(I am nearly sleeping.)
Somewhere in the night a
human being is drowning.
2
Руки люблю
Целовать, и люблю
Имена раздавать,
И ещё — раскрывать
Двери!
— Настежь — в тёмную ночь!
Голову сжав,
Слушать, как тяжкий шаг
Где-то легчает,
Как ветер качает
Сонный, бессонный
Лес.
Ах, ночь!
Где-то бегут ключи,
Ко сну — клонит.
Сплю почти.
Где-то в ночи
Человек тонет.
«In sheepskin coats of homely peasant cut / From villages far south of the Oka / They came, three strangers. Each had left his hut / To put his case about the way things are. All Russia tossed, distraught by war and famine / With everything confused, disturbed, displaced. / She roared and ...»
«The sparse, untidy, ginger-coloured curls / In meagre whisps about her head lie scattered; / Her little blouse is faded, old and tattered. / She looks a freak among the boys and girls / Playing around her, poor, misshapen creature / With crooked teeth and sharp, ungainly features. / Not ...»
«Shall I live always / Sitting at home? / Wasting my youth here, / Never to roam? And by the window / Shall I always stay, / The far road watching / By night and by day? Are the hawk's pinions / Unfettered never? / Is ev'ry journey / Barred him for ever? To foreign peoples / Fe...»
«How helplessly chilled was my chest, yet / My footsteps were nimble and light. / The glove that belonged on my left hand / I unconsciously put on my right. It seemed that the stairs were endless, / But I knew — there were only three! / Autumn, whispering through the maples, / Pleaded...»