Your pensive sigh is calling me
To warm light, to my native threshold
Where grandmother and grandfather sit on the porch
Awaiting their spirited sunflower-aged grandson.
Their grandson is slim and white as a birch,
With honey hair and velvet hands.
Except, o my friend, I see from his blue eyes —
They’re only dreaming of his worldly life.
The bright Virgin in the icon corner
Beams joy into their darkness.
With a quiet smile on her thin lips
She holds their grandson in her arms.
К тёплому свету, на отчий порог,
Тянет меня твой задумчивый вздох.
Ждут на крылечке там бабка и дед
Резвого внука подсолнечных лет.
Строен и бел, как берёзка, их внук,
С мёдом волосьев и бархатом рук.
Только, о друг, по глазам голубым —
Жизнь его в мире пригрезилась им.
Шлёт им лучистую радость во мглу
Светлая дева в иконном углу.
С тихой улыбкой на тонких губах
Держит их внука она на руках.
«Blizzards have whirled all night, but the morning's clear. / Still a Sunday laziness crawls across my body, / and the Church of the Annunciation hasn't yet / come out of mass. I go out to the yard. / How small, all of it: a little house, a little twist of smoke above the roof! Silvery-rosy,...»
«With a cane he feels his way, / blind man on a random walk, / carefully he plants a foot / and mumbles something to himself. / In the whiteness of his eyes / a universe reflected back: / a house, a field, a fence, a cow, / patches of a pale blue sky — / everything that he can't see»
«for Sergei Krechetov A thin howl from the dogs on guard. / Tonight still camped in the same place, / no-good vagabond orphans, we are / warming our hands at the bonfire. A sullen look beneath the brows / from empty nights of far-fetched sleep. / The smoke is full of ruby floaters / whi...»
«There was a house here. They recently dismantled / the upstairs for firewood, leaving just the rough / lower stonework structure. I go there / often of an evening to relax. The open sky / and green trees in the little courtyard / rise up so fresh from all that's fallen, / and there's the...»