All days are fractured as though by crime,
The passage of hoary time grows rusty,
My body's fettered with rigidity,
My heart oppressed and my blood cold as ice.
But there comes lightning: everything can change
In a prophetic dream or wide awake.
The sword of the Archangel touches me
With burning flame and I'm alive again!
Все дни изломаны, как преступлением,
Седого Времени заржавел ход.
И тело сковано оцепенением,
И сердце сдавлено, и кровь — как лед.
Но знаю молнии: всё изменяется...
Во сне пророческом иль наяву?
Копье Архангела меня касается
Ожогом пламенным — и я живу.
Пусть на мгновение, — на полмгновения,
Одним касанием растоплен лед...
Я верю в счастие освобождения,
В Любовь, прощение, в огонь — в полет!
«Wake as you will, but wake in me, — / in the cold, in the voiceless depths of me. I will not beg for words, but give / me a sign that you are still alive. Not for long — just a moment of your time. / If not a verse, just a sigh, just a cry. Just a whisper or just a moan. / Just t...»
«But I keep remembering one of them, / that first spring of the blockade… / / How many rusty beds and bunks / littered the streets those days! / They hunched down among the ruins / senselessly trying to screen them. / Their sombre, bony dance twirled / everywhere the ground was bei...»
«When I set out my mother gave me / a little ikon depicting Silence. / Dumbly desperate now, for long / it has had no work beseeching god. / / And the blessed angel of Silence / watched over me jealously. / Twice – and it was no accident – / he turned me from the path. He knew…...»
«I still believe that I shall return to life, / shall wake early one day, at dawn, / in the light, early hours, in the transparent dew, / where the branches are studded with drops, / and a small lake stands in the sundew’s bowl, / reflecting the swift flight of the clouds. / And, inclin...»