Narcissus

Child!
You’ll fall in the river!

In the depths there’s a rose
and in the rose another river.

See that bird! Look
at that yellow bird!

My eyes have disappeared
into the water.

Oh!
He’s slipping! Little boy!

… and I myself am in the rose.

When he was lost in the water
I understood. But I shan’t explain.

Lorca

Radiation sickness

Radiation sickness!

                    Humanity

puts it bluntly:

          learn to endure.

The treatment

Takes an eternity,

and there’s little chance

of a cure.

Judgement’s passed.

No hope,

not a glimmer.

Is it fair—

          come, speak up and say—

that the heirs

of the Hiroshimas

for their fathers

                    are made to pay?...

Drops of dew

have a poisonous glitter,

and the air

pretends to be clean.

The complaints

          of the guiltless

                    are bitter,

malformed infants

moan and scream.

Mauled by time,

          our ancient planet

is a gaping wound.

 You are

omnipresent,

          and many-handed,

radialion sickness;

                    your scars

never heal.

Look!

    The calendar, grinning croukedly,

sheds its sheets....

          The deadly blast

fades away with the years,

                    but, wickedly,

time itself

you seek

to outlast.

In our blood-stream you rove,

                    sowing panic,

to our marrow

          you eat

                    your way,

like the germ

of an epidemic,

like the curse

of a blighted day.

You attack us in secret.

                    Your villainy,

like your sores,

is not pretty to see,

radiation sickness

          of calumny

swagger,

cowardice, spiteful glee!

It’s a fact,

          not a fruit of fantasy,

I am not

          sending words

                    down the drain.

Look how beardless

          these days

                    is hypocrisy:

it’s a sign

you’ve cropped up again!

 

Radiation sickness—

 how lavishly

You bestow your bounty.

                    Alas!

Exhortations won’t help

                    to banish you

from the planet’s

tormented face.

There’s no drug

in the medical cabinet,

there’s no doctor

          to spell your doom.

Time will kill you

                    in time.

That’s definite.

It’s a pity

it won’t be soon.

Translated by Irina Zheleznova

ROBERT ROZHDESTVENSKY

Night

Night
Lamp, candle,
firefly, lantern.

The saeta’s
constellation.
Little windows of gold
tremble,
and in the dawn the sway
of cross upon cross.


Lamp, candle,
firefly, lantern.

LORCA

Water

Water?
Yes, it’s water.
And here we have the surety:
It follows water’s laws;
It falls in drops,
It flows,
It passes all the tests of clarity and purity—
But does it serve to slake
Your thirst, or wash your clothes?
It scorns to deck its rim with rushes, reeds
                    and sedges—
No sheen of silv’ry fish in dim mysterious deeps,
No waving water-reeds. And round its tidy edges
No song-bird sings, and ne’er a willow weeps.

Water?
Yes, it’s water;
It’s proved by all the data,
Although it knows no wave of storm or strife.
And this
This H₂0
This aqua distillata
Has all that water has
Yes,
All but life.

LEONID MARTYNOV
Translated liy Archie Jolmstone

Foolish Song

Mama,
I want to turn into silver.

Son,
you’d freeze.

Mama,
I want to turn into water.

Son,
you’d freeze.

Mama,
sew me into your pillow.

This time yes,
and straightaway!

LORCA

To be Myself

I’ve had advice from everyone I know,
It was bestowed most subtly and astutely.
And all I did was nod my head: "That’s so.
You’re right.... You’re right, old fellow,
                    absolutely!”
          One finger stiffly raised,
          they’d clutch me tight
By the lapel.
          “I’m grateful beyond measure.”
I never argued:
          “Yes... Yes, thank you....
                    Quite.”
It cost me nothing, and it gave them pleasure.
"I do agree.... I do... That’s really clever!...
Without a doubt!... Of course.... I’ll think it over....”
      The harder did they try to shape my mind,
The more to be myself was I inclined.

YEVGENI VINOKUROV
 (Translated by Irina Zhelezrova)

The Oakleaf

The darkest clouds won’t terrify me,
I can withstand the fiercest winds,
I cling to life, all storms defying,
As to its branch an oakleaf clings.

Through autumn rain and gloom despairing
It blazes with a copper glint,
And when a vicious wind comes tearing
The oakleaf merely sways and rings.

In winter, when the cold turns mean
And every night a blizzard blows,
The oakleaf valiantly screens
The mother branch on which it grows.

But when the spring its magic weaves
The oakleaf welcomes it, enlhralled,
And ceding place to young green leaves
Upon the ground it softly falls.

PETRUS BROVKA
(Translated by Olga Shartse)