«To Maria Petrovna Maksakova Does winter really have thunderstorms / And sky that’s bluer than a blueprint? / I like your having eyes that slant, / And also that your soul is slanted. I like the headlong briskness of your gait, / The chilly feeling of your shoulders, / Your frivolous an...»
«My unglorious day is waning, / Finally the end has come… / Oh, my ash-tree ice! My verses, / Light-transparent frigid ones! I do not intend to leave my / Useless goods to anyone. / I shine up the crystal and the / Silver for myself alone. And my icon lamp is burning, / Getting rosy...»
«And truly, one cannot predict / Who in the world will be one’s reader: / A ball can’t know what it will hit / Once it’s shot into the distance. Well, then, my life-creating verse, / Whom I breathe and in whom I live, / Fly off into darkness, into the void, / Or simply, into the se...»
«People cut a hole through / The dark-blue thickness of ice: / An air vent for big fish and little, / Water for water hoistings, / A way out for a weary woman / If in the end life turned out / Not to be traveling her road, / If she had nowhere to go!»