...No grass ever grows
Making baskets for us
Is their lives’ sole purpose —
Making baskets from the straw,
Weightless basket service.
On the moon, twilight looms
Houses are neater
On the moon, no homes,
Only pigeon quarters
Bluish homes — bluish homes —
Wondrous pigeon quarters...
…На луне не растёт
Ни одной былинки;
На луне весь народ
Делает корзинки —
Из соломы плетёт
Легкие корзинки.
На луне — полутьма
И дома опрятней;
На луне не дома —
Просто голубятни;
Голубые дома —
Чудо-голубятни.
«You look like me — looking down; / Your eyes on the graveyard lane. / I, too, kept my eyes on the ground; / Please stop and read my name! Pick poppies and verbena: / They grow here wild with sage — / And read my name, Marina, / Along with two numbers — my age. Don't think that I ...»
«Some like maids, and others — marquesas / To each his own, as they say — / The concierge's daughter (her name is Lisa) / Has stolen my heart away. Lisa is known to be timid and private — / Our autumn romance is discreet. / Her mother is strict and my Lisa keeps quiet / Whenever we...»
«One day a German sniper may hit me in my gullet, / Or, from some Nazi rookie I'd get a crazy bullet, Or else, a mine could shred my legs with shrapnel scatters / This war will do me in; but how? It doesn't matter. And then I will be lying there no name to me, nor glory / My frozen gaze still...»
«Recall the day when sleepy water / Seemed green and lazy at the shore? / All of a sudden, we both spotted / Two warships, gray — and then two more. And all at once, the world expanded / And opened like a story book, / The sailors passed us by; we envied / Their tan and their foreign l...»