Nikolay Klyuev
A Psalter of Tsar` Aleksii...

A Psalter of Tsar' Aleksii,
Its pages — scarves, funeral groats,
Restless Russia
Wanders, wheezing, through decrees.

The peasant jacket is torn,
The disgraced headscarf flaps .
Now a bench by' the door would be good,
And tales about Constantinople,

Honey buns on the table,
The bells of Dormition across the fence...
Oh, to hide from the rumors
Of the indefatigability of iron.

To take a nap, as before, on the stove bench...
Except that gunpowder and smoke are in the wind...
Is it foreign devils that the quietest
Tsar Is washing off in the bathhouse?

Aren't they binning Avvakum
To the cawing of countless crows?..
From Bukhara to the Lapp tents
Calico May is flaming.

Under apple blossom, the jacket and
The lenten Psalter are swept away...
Behind the Soviet summer of posters
Flower roses and ginger.

In the luminescence of astral sowing,
Like an ear of grain to its furrows,
Eve gleams in her nakedness
Smiling at other worlds.

Translated by Michael Makin