Selected poems 4

The Lightest Boat

When night arrives
The sky is scattered with billions of shining fires
And birds begin their spring concerto.
When night arrives
The air is filled with the freshness of wild forests and fields
And God sends
Me His envelope.
Inside that envelope — life:
It sways backward,
Then, swaying again,
Moves forward.
And my lightest boat
Cutting through the lights
Sails quietly on.
May 2014

Over the House a Sparkling Star Burns

Over the house a sparkling star burns.
Before the house yellow flowers grow.
And the window, bright with light,
Either speaks
Or whispers softly
That rays do not burn.
The forest will flare again with ringing sun.
In an old T-shirt a photograph keeps its color.
And to run —
To run —
To run —
Without feeling weight,
Forgetting how many years lie behind your back.
August 7, 2014
Farewell
And when we part for eternity —
We return.
And when we part for a moment —
We separate.
And when we part forever —
We meet.
And when we meet always —
We speak.
And when we speak —
Then
We sway
On the waves
On the waves
On the waves
On the waves
And when we sway upon the waves
We return again
On our ships
Ships
Ships
Ships
Ships…

Drink the Bee’s Poison
Drink the bee’s poison.
Eat the berries of the Amur velvet.
There is also Aconite of Dzungaria —
But that one relieves forever and for long,
So perhaps not yet.
Drink the bee’s poison —
In small doses it heals.
Avicenna was no fool,
He always spoke the truth.
How is your life going?
No one cares about that question
Except the one who
At night
Turns poisons
Into medicine.
Drink the bee’s poison,
And perhaps your Gift will be noticed,
Lifted,
Tossed toward the sky.
You will fly through the window at night,
Stripped of earthly space,
Under the watchful gaze of the One
Who at night
Turns poisons
Into medicine.
2016

I Love You, My Sky
I love you, my sky,
Bottomless in your essence.
I love you
Though I have never yet
Visited you.
I fed my cows with bread,
Straw
And mown grass.
But the Lord lured me with sky,
With sun,
With road,
With play.

SOLIGALICH

Soligalich lost in Kostroma forests,
Galich and Soligalich in Chukhloma lands.
Surrounded by wonders, sleeping without people,
Guarded for centuries
By old Grandfather Berendey.
2014

BAKURIANI

At night
When stars ignite
In wild,
Dense,
Impenetrable forests,
Snow wraps white blankets around the trees.
Through the thickness of years
Still echoes the howl of wolves
High in the mountains
Of inaccessible Didi-Tsemi.
And in summer —
Impossible to forget
The immense red field
Covered entirely
With red,
Red poppies
Beside the abandoned observatory
In the mountains of impregnable Bakuriani.
1990–2014

DIPAVALI

The sky stretched like a canopy,
Stars like lamps lit for a festival —
Dipavali.
And Lakshmi will knock on every door.
Light your divine flame deep within the heart
With billions of sparklers
Children burn
On an October night
At the festival
Of Dipavali.
April 14, 2014

Lake Linevo

Time has stopped.
At night, high above, stars smolder.
There are only two of us — the watchman and I.
Only two — water and taiga.
One of the five lakes of the Humpbacked Horse.
2014

MANARAGA

Autumn spreads its wings.
The city in cold air.
I will vanish with the dust
And remain forever young.
I release thoughts from my palms —
They land somewhere in Varanasi,
Float along the waters of the Ganges,
And return to the White Race.
Return to the noisy city,
Dissolve in black coffee.
India calls —
I draw mountains in profile,
I draw sun and sky,
Manaraga, Himalayas —
And dissolve in black coffee
Somewhere in Moscow or China.
2014

IREMEL

In flashes of sun at last revealed —
Mysterious Iremel.
We left the snowmobile, climbed upward.
Our ship will never run aground —
Our ship will fly only up.
I shout: “Hello, Krishna!
Kryshen, привет!”
But my voice is drowned by gray Ural.
And winter leaves its mark on stones
Accepted by the white Iriy.
2013




Winter

Smoke carried past lives to the sky.
Old thoughts burn in the stove all night.
Snowflakes open like parachutes
And fall upon the roof.
The lake covered with white silence of ice,
Fish sank deep and fell asleep.
A fox walks nearby leaving tracks,
The woodpecker knocks all day.
The village sleeps and drinks a little.
At night a star flies and fades like a spark —
Didn’t manage to make a wish again.
Step onto the porch at night
And without entering a planetarium
You can study astronomy by the stars.
There — the Great Bear.
And there — Polaris:
Amber,
Reliable,
Eternal.
December 9, 2014




I Will Return
 
Through many years,
Through many winters,
When stars tremble again on the canvas
With paints not yet dry —
Unconquered —

I will return.

I will return from love,
And return from battle.
I will twist and spiral
In this yellow foliage,
Turn labyrinth in this eternal game,
Lose myself in dream,
Bury myself in spring.
I will return when wild waves
Roar rebelliously again.
For I am not given to grow weary of struggle.
Your horses will long for storms again
Because they have long ceased loving peace.
I will return — perhaps in scars,
With wounds across the heart,
Still wrapped in verse
But without old garments.
I will return in someone’s songs,
I will return in someone’s dreams,
In chosen words — not in the ignorant.
I will return when white manes
Of gray stallions
Boil in sea foam.
And your ships at weary ports
Will stand
A little longer —
Just a little longer.
2014



STORM 

Ships do not anchor in such weather.
Seagulls do not flap their wings.
Old God Poseidon plays
A flute tearing vocal cords apart,
And his slaves — the waves —
Plow and plow.
If you are tired of rocking and shaking —
Then you were not born
To battle the elements.
Yes, they cannot be commanded —
But they can be fought.
And you can write honestly
About the storm you witnessed.
And your poems will surge like waves,
Swirl and return in memory.
Let the raging sea rear on its hind legs.
Let words be sharp and rough.
Ask nothing more from fate.
Only waves know
The joy of struggle.
Only waves know
The price of freedom.
1999 / completed 2012

In Memory of Antoine de Saint-Exupеry

From fragments of a broken wing
They built a great fire.
A signal flame burns in the desert.
Perhaps it is only a mirage —
But far away stretches a wondrous carpet
And upon it your plane makes a steep turn.
Time carries you like a river.
In love with the sun-gilded world,
You left us your words for centuries.
May 22, 2014