He is gone — I cannot eat:
The taste — of stale bread.
All — chalk.
Anything I am drawn to.
...I am the bread that was
And the snow that was.
And the snow was not white
And the bread was unloved.
Ушёл — не ем:
Пуст — хлеба вкус.
Всё — мел.
За чем ни потянусь.
…Мне хлебом был,
И снегом был.
И снег не бел,
И хлеб не мил.
«Do you forgive me these November days? / In canals around the Neva fires fragment. / Scant is tragic autumn’s finery.»
«Our grandad’s outlandish dream, / the prison years of our heroes, / our hope and our heartfelt lament, / our prayer we hardly dared utter – / our dis-membered / dis-constituted, / dis-banded / Constituent Assembly.»
«In early autumn sweetly wistful, / there is a short but wonderous interim, / when days seem made as though of crystal, / with evenings luminously dim... Without their tillers, empty fields look wider; / where sickles ravaged in the harvester’s ebb, / a single thread left by a spider / ...»
«When at night I wait for her to come, / Life, it seems, hangs by a single strand. / What are glory, youth, freedom, in comparison / With the dear welcome guest, a flute in hand? She enters now. Pushing her veil aside, / She stares through me with her attentiveness. / I question her: "And ...»