6
This night today I am alone in the night —
A sleepless and a homeless nun!
This night today I have the keys
Of all the gates of capital, just one!
The sleeplessness has pushed me on the way.
O, dusky Kremlin, how you're beautiful!
I kiss into the chest this night today
The whirling-round ground as it does howl!
The stifling wind blows straight into the soul,
The hair arises — not the hair, but down.
Those who are pitied and those who are kissed —
This night today I pity everyone.
6
Сегодня ночью я одна в ночи́ —
Бессонная, бездомная черница! —
Сегодня ночью у меня ключи
От всех ворот единственной столицы!
Бессонница меня толкнула в путь.
— О, как же ты прекрасен, тусклый Кремль мой! —
Сегодня ночью я целую в грудь
Всю круглую воюющую землю!
Вздымаются не волосы — а мех,
И душный ветер прямо в душу дует.
Сегодня ночью я жалею всех, —
Кого жалеют и кого целуют.
«It was near midnight when I entered: / She was asleep; the moon was shining / Through her window, lighting up / The dangling satin of her blanket. She lay face up, / Bare breasts parted, / And as she slept, her life was still / As a saucer of water.»
«High up on a snowy peak, / I carved a sonnet with a steel blade. / Time passes. To this day, perhaps, / The snows still bear my solitary mark. High up, where skies are ever blue, / In the exhilarating clarity of winter, / Only the sun to witness, as my knife / Inscribed the poem in the ...»
«Sultry heat; dry, dead grass; endless steppes; / Just the horizon’s faint, blue haze. / Over there, the skeleton of a horse’s head, / And here, look here! A Stone Idol. What sleepy, Hat features! / What primeval coarseness of body! / Yet I stand still; I fear you... But you. / You m...»
«At the gates of Zion, over Kedron, / There is a windswept hillock; / And where the wall gives temporary shade, / I happened to sit down beside a leper, / Who was eating toxic seeds. His stench was indescribable. / The fool was poisoning himself. / But he would smile, for all that, / L...»