Barely swaying
At a point where the winds cross,
Light birds hung
Like icon lamps amid the heavens.
Their tiny telescopic eyes
Peered straight down.
People crawled like bed-bugs,
And brooks meandered.
A mouse ran across a field,
And a bird pounced on it.
The little corpse, instantly disfigured,
Was dragged into the reeds.
And sitting there, the bird
Tore the mouse with its fingers,
And from its mouth a stream of water
Flowed onto the ground.
And shifting the tiny telescopes
Of its dimmed eyes,
The bird thought. A tarantas
Came rolling over the hill.
I was sitting in that tarantas,
As it sped across the field,
And my own wretched fate
Weighed on my heart as well.
Колыхаясь еле-еле
Всем ветрам наперерез,
Птицы легкие висели,
Как лампады средь небес.
Их глаза, как телескопики,
Смотрели прямо вниз.
Люди ползали, как клопики,
Источники вились.
Мышь бежала возле пашен,
Птица падала на мышь.
Трупик, вмиг обезображен,
Убираем был в камыш.
В камышах сидела птица,
Мышку пальцами рвала,
Изо рта ее водица
Струйкой на землю текла.
И сдвигая телескопики
Своих потухших глаз,
Птица думала. На холмике
Катился тарантас.
Тарантас бежал по полю,
В тарантасе я сидел
И своих несчастий долю
Тоже на сердце имел.
«With a cane he feels his way, / blind man on a random walk, / carefully he plants a foot / and mumbles something to himself. / In the whiteness of his eyes / a universe reflected back: / a house, a field, a fence, a cow, / patches of a pale blue sky — / everything that he can't see»
«for Sergei Krechetov A thin howl from the dogs on guard. / Tonight still camped in the same place, / no-good vagabond orphans, we are / warming our hands at the bonfire. A sullen look beneath the brows / from empty nights of far-fetched sleep. / The smoke is full of ruby floaters / whi...»
«There was a house here. They recently dismantled / the upstairs for firewood, leaving just the rough / lower stonework structure. I go there / often of an evening to relax. The open sky / and green trees in the little courtyard / rise up so fresh from all that's fallen, / and there's the...»
«If you have eyes — through day you'll see a night / the rays from that inflaming disk won't reach. / A pair of swallows fighting to escape / flap at the window, where they feebly cheep. But that transparent yet unyielding sheet / was never cut by wings, however sharp; / no darting that ...»