(接上)
from Poems for Blok
Your name is a--bird in my hand,
a piece of ice on my tongue.
The lips' quick opening.
Your name--four letters.
A ball caught in flight,
a silver bell in my mouth.
A stone thrown into a silent lake
is--the sound of your name.
The light click of hooves at night
--your name.
Your name at my temple
--sharp click of a cocked gun.
Your name--impossible--
kiss on my eyes,
the chill of snow.
Blue gulp of icy spring water.
With your name--sleep deepens.
April 15 1916
from Poems for Akhmatova
I won't fall behind you. I'm the guard.
You--the prisoner. Our fate is the same.
And here in the same open emptiness
they command us the same--Go away.
So--I lean against nothing.
I see it.
Let me go, my prisoner,
to walk over towards that pine tree.
June 1916
You throw back your head
You throw back your head
because you are proud, and a liar.
What a smiling boy this February has thrown at me!
You throw back your head.
Bumped into by boys looking for money,
we walk, two pompous kids, around my native city.
You throw back your head.
Whose finger, whose
fingers have touched your eyelashes?
Sweet boy, and when, and how many times,
your lips have kissed--
I do not ask. My thirst
must honor the poetry and God inside you, ten years old!
(You throw back your head.)
Let's wait by the river--it rinses
the bright beads of the streetlights:
you throw back your head,
my fool, running free--disappear. Forgive.
1916
I know the truth
I know the truth! Give up all the other truths.
No time on earth for poeple to kill each other.
Look--it's evening; look, it's nearly night. No more
of your talk, poets, lovers, generals.
Now no wind, and the earth is sprinkled with drizzle,
and soon the blizzard of stars will go quiet.
And soon, soon, to sleep, under the earth, all of us,
us who alive on earth don't let us sleep.
1915 |