My insatiable memory is like
A melting asphalt roadway:
I remember all who have passed along it,
Every movement of their life...
The tracks of iron wheels, of teeth,
The rusty tracks of injury and anguish.
Nearby the sweet birdlike prints
Of a dead daughter's little shoes.
Here, friends in succession have passed.
I remember all of them — why?
For they have forgotten me long ago —
And I shall never see them anymore.
There's one that passed along the edge.
The tracks of his reproach are darker.
Where is he living now? I do not know.
Perhaps, only in my memory.
A scoffing fate endowed me with
This memory as a punishment,
To plague me over the long years
With what my heart has burnt to ash.
Unconsciousness were better than a memory
Like melting asphalt, like a path —
An everlasting path under my footsteps
That cannot leave it, cannot be retraced.
На асфальт расплавленный похожа
память ненасытная моя:
я запоминаю всех прохожих,
каждое движенье бытия...
След колес, железных и зубчатых, —
ржавый след обиды и тоски.
Рядом птичий милый отпечаток —
дочери погибшей башмачки.
Здесь друзья чредою проходили.
Всех запоминала — для чего?
Ведь они меня давно забыли,
больше не увижу никого.
Вот один прошел совсем по краю.
Укоризны след его темней.
Где-то он теперь живет? Не знаю.
Может, только в памяти моей.
В наказание такую память
мне судьба-насмешница дала,
чтоб томило долгими годами
то, что сердцем выжжено дотла.
Лучше б мне беспамятство, чем память,
как асфальт расплавленный, как путь, —
вечный путь под самыми стопами:
не сойти с него, не повернуть...
«The street collapsed, as a syphilitic’s nose. / The river — drivelling voluptuousness. / Casting off their garments until the last leaf, / the gardens lay obscenely spread in June. I went to the square, / put on a burnt quarter / on my head, as a red-headed wig. / The people are afr...»
«This evening was to decide — / should we become lovers? — / it’s dark, / no one to see us. / I bent forward truly, / and truly / I, / bending forward, / said to her, / as a kind parent: / “The precipice of desire is steep — / be so kind, / step away. / Step away, ...»
«We went out of the stuffy room / Outside, the air languorous and sweet; / The lilac siblings of an indifferent family / Were staring from the balcony. The piping of sea reeds / And rubies, tossed about the splashes… / We strolled aimlessly for a long while / In between rocks on the lo...»
«Houses, bewitched by the morning; / The lack of people puts a spell on me, / And freshness lulls me. / In the sky — the wings of a frosty day. Lonely people pass by, / But all is quiet, as if they are not there, / No one, as if there is no one... / In the heights — a pale rose-color...»