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.
«Could I forget them? Kinfolk, / The seas? Caress a rail ticket? / For an orgy of the senses — a trap? / In a tempest — the crowd, a horde? A window, a compartment, provisions? / To get off somewhere? Unload somewhere? Settle down? / I relish the torment. — These scars! / Your lion...»
«So it begins. Year two rushes / From nurse into the darkness of melodies, / It whistles, it chirps, — then words / Begin around the third year. Thus does understanding begin. / And in the start-up noise of the turbine / It seems, that mother — is not mother. / You’re — not you, ...»
«This is how they start. At two years / They dash from their nannies into melody's darkness, / They chirp, they whistle, - and words / Appear around year three. This is how they start to understand. / And through the roar of the ignited turbine / It comes to seem that mother isn't mother. ...»
«Us few. Perhaps us three — just — / Blazing and infernal from Donets / Stuck beneath gray racing crusts / Of rain, clouds and Soviets / Of soldiers, poems and debates / About transportation and the arts. We were people. Now we’re epochs. / As time overtakes us in a rush of coaches...»