Goldfinch, friend, I'll cock my head —
let's check the world out, just me and you:
this winter's day pricks like chaff;
does it sting your eyes too?
Boat-tailed, feathers yellow-black,
sopped in colour beneath your beak,
do you get, you goldfinch you,
just how you flaunt it?
What's he thinking, little airhead? —
white and yellow, black and red!
Both eyes check both ways — both! —
will check no more — he's bolted!
Мой щегол, я голову закину —
Поглядим на мир вдвоем:
Зимний день, колючий, как мякина,
Так ли жестк в зрачке твоем?
Хвостик лодкой, перья черно-желты,
Ниже клюва в краску влит,
Сознаёшь ли — до чего щегол ты,
До чего ты щегловит?
Что за воздух у него в надлобье —
Чёрн и красен, жёлт и бел!
В обе стороны он в оба смотрит — в обе! —
Не посмотрит — улетел!
«In wide-brimmed hats and long duffel coats, / With notebooks full of your verse, / Long ago like fallen lilac sprigs, / Into dust you've since dispersed. You're in that land, where no shape's ready-made, / Where everything's disjointed, blurred, aborted, / Where the sky is replaced by a b...»
«Months of languor have settled in / Can it be that life is over, / Or, its work done, has come / Like a late guest to the table... It wants to drink, but won't touch wine, / And wants to eat, but has no appetite. / It listens to the whisper of an ash / And to a goldfinch singing outside...»
«In this world where our / Role is obscure and frail, / You and I will both grow old / Like the king in a fairy tale. Our life, shining patiently, / Burns out in a forbidden land, / And silently we meet there / Fate's inevitable hand. And when those silver streaks / Begin to glitter i...»
«Words are like lamplit fireflies. / While scattered and unseen in the dark, / Their pure flame is dim and insignificant, / And their living dust invisible. But look at them in a Black Sea spring, / Where oleanders sleep in solemn bloom, / Where a sea of fireflies glows in the nocturnal ab...»