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.
«Because somewhere there’s simplicity and light, / Transparent, warm and joyous… / There a neighbour talks with a girl at twilight, / Over the fence, and only the bees hear, / The most tender of murmurings. While we live with ceremony, difficulty, / Honouring the rites of our bitter me...»
«For O. A. Kuzmina-Karavaeva "If we can only reach the shore, / My dear!’ — ‘Silently…" / And so we slipped down the stair, / Not breathing, searching for keys. Past the place where we once / Danced, and drank the wine, / Past the Senate’s white columns, / To where it was dark...»
«I rarely think of you now, / Not captured by your fate, / But our insignificant meeting’s trace / Has not vanished from my soul. I purposely avoid your red house, / That red house on its muddy river, / But I know I bitterly disturb / Your sunlit heart at rest. Though you never bent t...»
«Already the maple leaves / Cover the swans’ pool, / And the blood-stained arms / Of late-ripening rowan. And, dazzlingly slender, / Crossed legs impervious to cold, / She sits on a northern stone, / And gazes at the road. I felt a vague fear, / In front of this famous girl. / Ray...»