Nikolay Minsky
Two ways

Speak not of ways of good and bad:
Both are the ways of good.
At dawn, by Freedom I was led
To where they split; I stood

As Freedom said, “Two ways here run,
Two truths, two merits split.
The crowd will struggle choosing one,
The wise won’t toil one bit.

The things that still go by the name
Of evil, vice and sin
Are but the turn to which we came,
That where our ways begin.

The unity of being ends
The way of noisy fuss;
The other way in silence bends,
In void uniting us -

Or not: in truth, same dark comes forth,
Choose any of the doors.
You play the ghost of God on earth,
In heaven, he plays yours.

We’re cursed by knowing that we got
More than one path at stake.
We’re blessed in that it matters not
Which of the two we take.

Serene, walk either of the pair
And fear not that they part.
With others sharing toil and care
Stay nonchalant at heart.

Their joy by equal joy negate,
With love set love on fire,
Save only me to contemplate,
To worship and admire.

Warm up the world with my one glee
And tell all people then
What I have whispered secretly
To you, the first of men.

Tell: I brought light they never had,
So they all understood.
We have no ways of good and bad:
Both are the ways of good.”

Translated by Evgenia Sarkisyants