stacking money into columns:
five-kopeck pieces and lesser ones . . .
Shoo!—he says to the children,
birds, and beggars—
shoo, he says, go away:
can’t you see that I’m busy?)
I look—and I draw a picture in my mind:
myself before a dark mirror.
BEADS
My grandmother’s lapis ring,
my great grandfather’s books—these
I can give up, I think.
But somehow these glass beads
are more than I can bear to lose.
They are bright-colored, simple
like a garden of peacocks, and
their heart is made of stars and fish scales.
Or a lake, and fish in the lake:
first a black one dives up, then scarlet,
then the tiniest fish, a flash of green—
he will never come back now,
indeed, why should he?
I love not the poor, nor the rich,
not this country, nor any other,
not the time of day, nor time of year—
but I do love what is all-seeming:
it is a mysterious form of joy.
It has no price—and no sense.
THE JOURNEY
When this misfortune comes to an end
or this happiness turns away,
it will move off like the towering waves,
and I will walk down a familiar road,
at last, going where I am bidden to go.
Then I shall listen to what I will hear,
Speak, that I may hear these words:
“I have been waiting for you—and here you are.
I have always known you and now recognize you.
Can you think I would forget?”
Each of us wants to be recognized, known,
for birds to fly down in greeting,
for the dead to stand up as if living,
for the beasts to bring their young
and for time, slowly, to unfold,
like lightning remembered from long ago.
THE THIRD NOTEBOOK
In memory of my grandmother, Darya Semyonovna Sedakova
1
Come, joy of my life, let us go,
let’s walk around our garden,
and look at what has changed in the world!
Give me your hand, my sweet, my love,
bring me my old walking stick.
Let’s go, before summer passes by.
No matter that I lie in my grave—
there’s no end to what one forgets!
From the garden, you can see a small river,
in the river, you see every last fish.
2
Now what have I done, that
my candle cannot flame brightly,
that it flickers like eyes in pain,
like sleepless, dull eyes?—
I will remember—much; I shall forget—even more.
But I do not want to forget, nor to remember.
Ah, I have looked long on people in this world
and I know strange things:
I know that the soul is but a babe,
a babe until its last hour of life,
it believes everything—everything!
and it sleeps in a den of thieves.
3
A woman’s fate is a loom,
a loom seen on old gravestones,
it is a winter night of untold stories.
I grew up an orphan, grew old a widow,
then grew to feel my shame.
A golden thread was falling from the sky,
Falling down, almost to earth.
Why does this gnaw at the heart?
From out of the ocean’s depths
a wondrous fish swam forth,
it bore a ring of pearls
but could not swim to shore.
What storm howls in the breast?
Oh, to cry out—but no cries can come,
how pitiful, this beautiful earth!
4
If you are born on a doomed Monday,
don’t even think of happiness:
you’re lucky to escape at all
under your star of loss.
I was born on a
