There's no need to use the gift of speech,
There is hardly anything to teach,
And the features of the animal soul
Are sublimely sad and beautiful.
Having no command of human speech,
Nor anything teachable to teach,
It swims in the hoary ocean’s gulf,
Laughing like a happy dolphin calf.
Ни о чем не нужно говорить,
Ничему не следует учить,
И печальна так и хороша
Темная звериная душа:
Ничему не хочет научить,
Не умеет вовсе говорить
И плывет дельфином молодым
По седым пучинам мировым.
«The restaurants on hot spring evenings / Lie under a dense and savage air. / Foul drafts and hoots from drunken revelers / Contaminate the thoroughfare. / / Above the dusty lanes of suburbia / Above the tedium of bungalows / A pretzel sign begilds a bakery / And children screech for...»
«In the church choir a girl was singing About all the weary people in a strange land About all the ships far out on oceans About all who were forgetting the joys at hand. High in the steeple her voice was singing, A thin ray turning her shoulder white . From the dark everyone watched a...»
«Far up in empty mountains I met a shepherd Blowing low notes on a long alpine horn. Flowing pleasantly and loud, both song And horn were merely instruments for waking A more captivating mountain melody. Each time, after a few notes, the shepherd listened As the echo traveled back through narro...»
«Two wires are wrapped together, / The loose ends naked, exposed / A yes and no, not united, / Not united, but juxtaposed. / A dark, dark juxtaposition — / So close together, dead. / But resurrection awaits them; / And they await what waits ahead. / End will meet end in touching / ...»