«Look for me in spring's transparent air. / I flit like vanishing wings, no heavier than / a sound, a breath, a sunray on the floor; / I'm lighter than that ray — it's there: I'm gone. But we are friends for ever, undivided! / Listen: I'm here. Your hands can feel the way / to reach me w...»
«Not my mother, but a Tula peasant, / Eléna Kúzina, fed me her breast. / She warmed my swaddling-clothes above the stove, / and with her cross at night my dreams were blessed. She knew no fairy tales and never sang: / but always kept as treats for me instead / inside her treasured w...»
«The heat was unbearable. The forests were burning. / Time passed languorously. At the neighboring dacha / A cock was crowing. I went outside the gate. / There, leaning upon the fence, an itinerant Serb, / Rail-thin and dark, was snoozing on the bench. / A heavy silver cross hung suspended ...»
«Halfway through life’s journey I, I, I. What a wild, elusive word! / Is that man over there really me? / Did mama really love someone like that? / With a pasty yellow face, half grey hair, / And all-knowing, like a snake? The boy who danced at parties / At summer houses in Ostankino â€...»