The air is split into black branches,
like old glass.
Pray to Our Lady of Autumn!
The windows of autumn’s chapel,
smashed by a hurtling bullet,
are wrinkling.
A tree was burning,
a bright spill in the golden air.
It bends; it bows down.
Autumn’s flint and steel angrily
struck the sparks of golden days.
A forest at prayer. All at once
golden smells fell to the ground.
Trees stretch out — rakes
gathering armfuls of the sun’s hay.
Autumn’s tree resonantly evokes
a sketch of Russia’s railroads.
The golden autumn wind
has scattered me everywhere.
Воздух расколот на черные ветки,
Как старое стекло.
Молитесь Богоматери осени!
Окна часовни осени,
Пулей разбитые с разбегу, морщатся.
Дерево горело лучиной в воздухе золотом.
Гнется и клонится.
Осени огниво гневно,
Высекло золотые дни.
Молебствие леса. Все сразу
Упали золотые запахи.
Деревья вытянуты, точно грабли
Для охапок солнечного сена.
На чертеж российских железных дорог
Дерево осени звонко похоже.
Ветер осени золотой
Развеял меня.
«I don’t know if you’re dead or still living, / If I should seek you on earth, or alas, / Sitting pensively, in the evening, / Warmly grieve for the one who has passed. All to you: Daily prayer and thought, / And insomnia’s feverish rise, / The white flock of the poems I wrote, / A...»
«I don't know if you're alive or dead. / Can you on earth be sought, / Or only when the sunsets fade / Be mourned serenely in my thought? All is for you: the daily prayer, / The sleepless heat at night, / And of my verses, the white / Flock, and of my eyes, the blue fire. No-one was mor...»
«I'll leave your quiet yard and your white house — / Let life be empty and with light complete. / I'll sing the glory to you in my verse / Like not one woman has sung glory yet. / And that dear girlfriend you remember / In heaven you created for her sight, / I'm trading product that is ...»
«I have not heard the tales of Ossian, / I have not tasted age-old wine — / why then do I seem to see a field / and Scotland's murderous moon? And in the sinister silence I seem to hear / the roll-call of the raven and the harp, / and, streaming in the wind, the scarves of men-at-arms / ...»