CDs

1. AUTUMN
Quiet is the juniper grove along the steep.
Autumn, that red–haired mare, combs its mane.

And the blue clang of its horseshoes can be heard
Over the blanket of the riverside.

The wind, in monk–like careful steps,
Tramples leafage on road ledges,

And it kisses, on a rowan tree,
The red wounds of unseen Christ.

3. O GUARD ABOVE CLOUDS, OPEN TO ME…
O guard above clouds, open to me
The azure door of day.
Last midnight, a white angel
Drove away my horse.

God needs not what is not his.
My horse is my might and support.
I can hear him neighing dolefully,
Biting his gold chain.

I can see him writhing and rushing,
Plucking at his tight lasso,
And dun–colored hairs fly off him,
To the fog, as if from the moon.

5. A RUSSIA FLYING AWAY
O my land of gold!
Fair temple of autumn!
A flight of noisy geese

Is rushing to the clouds.

It is an innumerable host
Of transfigured souls
Driven up from sleepy lakes,
Flying to the garden of heaven.

Flying, flying, flying to the heavenly garden.

A swan is flying ahead,
Eyes full of grove–great grief.
Is it not you weeping in the sky,
A Russia that's flying away?

Fly on, fly on, don't struggle,
All things have their time and shore.
Winds flow down into the song,
And the song will sink into oblivion.

Fly on, fly on, fly on, Golden Russia!

7. WHERE ARE YOU, ANCESTRAL HOME…
Where are you, ancestral home,
That warmed its back at the hillside?
O my little blue flower
In never–trampled sand —
Where are you?

A rooster’s crowing across the river.
A shepherd guarded flocks there,
And three distant stars
Were shining out of water.

Time, a mill with a wing,
Drops the moon like a pendulum,
Into the rye behind the village
To pour the unseen rain of hours.

That rain, with its host of arrows,
Has whirled my home in clouds,
And struck down the sky–blue flower,
And trampled on the golden sand.
Where are you, ancestral home?

9. THE DEATHLY HORN IS BLOWING, IS BLOWING!
The deathly horn is blowing, is blowing!
What shall we, what shall we do now
On the dirty thighs of muddy roads?

Soon, a frost will whitewash with its lime
his village, and these meadows.
Nowhere can you hide from destruction,
Nowhere can you hide from your foe.
Here he is! Here he is with a belly of iron
Reaching our plains’ throats with his paw…

The deathly horn is blowing, is blowing!

11. OH, I BELIEVE THAT HAPPINESS EXISTS!
Oh, I believe that happiness exists!
The sun has not died out yet.
The dawn is prophesying good news
By its scarlet prayer–book.

Chime, chime, Golden Russia,
And surge, you incessant wind!
Blessed is he who has marked
Your pastoral sadness with joy.

I love the murmur of wild waters,
And starshine upon the waves,
And blessed suffering,
And the blessing people.

2. I HAVE LEFT MY BELOVED HOME…
I have left my beloved home,
Left behind my azure–blue Russia.
The birches’ three candles by the pond
Are burning as old mother’s sorrow.

That golden frog of a moon
Now lies sprawling over the quiet water.
White heirs are strewn in Father’s beard
Like blossom of apple trees.

I’ll be back, but not soon, not soon!
Blizzards will sing and ring for long.
An old maple tree on one leg
Watches over my sky–blue Russia.

And I know there is joy in it
For those kissing the rain of leaves,
Just because that old maple tree
Does resemble my head.

4. SILVERY GLITTERING ROAD…

Silvery glittering road,
Whereto are you calling me?
A star is burning above me
As a Holy Thursday candle.

Are you kindling joy or sorrow?
Or are you steering towards madness?
Help me love your coarse snow
To the last — with my spring heart.

Give me the dawn for a wood–sledge,
And a willow–branch for a bridle.
Maybe then I'll drive myself
Up to the Lord's gate.

6. O SIMON, O PETER… WHERE ARE YOU? COME NEAR…
O Simon, o Peter…
Where are you? Come near.
White willows started,
“He’s there, ahead!”

O Simon, o Peter…
Where are you? I’m calling!
Someone is whispering,
“Call out into the blue!”

I called — and the dark
Pranced up aloud.
A red–haired fisher
Walked out with a bag.

“Friend… Why’re you here?”
“Following you.”
“Who are you?” “Judas!”
Mumbled the surf.

8. THERE, BEHIND THE MILKY HILLS…
There, behind the Milky Hills,
Among the heavenly poplars,
Silver–jetted Aquarius
Is tilted down above us.

It’s the Ursa from the azure,
As a ladle from a tub.
And the storm leaping up to the sky
Has saddled the moon.

A whirling host of dead souls I dream of,
And a garden steaming milk.
Look, my granddad’s dragging the sun
To the sunset with a fish–trap.

10. HARK, AN OWL IS HOOTING AUTUMNLIKE…
Hark, an owl is hooting autumnlike
Over the road’s vast this early hour.
My head is shedding its leaves,
Yea, the bush of my gold hair’s fading.

It’s a “koo–goo” call of steppe and field.
Hello, mother blue aspen!
Soon the moon will bathe in snow
And be seated in your son’s sparse curls.

Soon I’ll be leafless and cold,
With my ears full of star–jingling.
Youngsters will sing without me,
Old folks listening without me.

A new poet will come from the field,
With a new whistle to sound the woods.
Autumnlike are the fits of the wind,
Autumnlike is the whisper of leaves.

12. O HOMELAND, IT’S A HAPPY AND IMMINENT HOUR!
O Homeland, it’s a happy
And imminent hour!
There’ nothing better or nicer
Than your cow–like eyes.

To you, and your fogs,
And sheep in your fields,
I’m carrying the sun in my hands,
Like a sheaf of oats.

Be hallowed in Pentecost,
Be hallowed in Christmas,
For vigil–thirsty humans
To get drunk with eternity.

And not a single stone
Thrown with a sling or bow
Will ever strike God’s hands that
Are raised high above us.

To you, and your fogs,
And sheep in your fields,
I’m carrying the sun in my hands,
Like a sheaf of oats.

1. A JOYFUL MOOD
Let me a tiny lodge, starling,
Settle me in an old nestling–box.
I will pledge my soul to you
For your sky–blue snowdrops.

Start your serenade, starling!
Through kettledrums and tambourines of History
You’re our first spring singer
From a birch–tree conservatory.

Open the show, you whistler!
Throw back your little pink head,
Tearing up the shine of the strings
In the very throat by the birch grove.

I, too, would be willing to add my voice,
But a wandering butterfly whispered to me,
“He who strains his throat in spring,
Will have lost his voice by summer.”

And the spring is so good, so good!
All my soul is embraced in lilacs.
Now soul, raise up a nestling–box
Over your spring gardens.

3. THE SUN IS UP
Having lit the roof’s tiling
And warmed up the pine–tree’s wood,
The spring’s late sun
Is rising higher and higher.

In the pinkish and brown smoke
Of the branches still defoliated,
A nightingale is clapping his wings — and singing,
All pierced with oblique beams.

How natural is this repetition
Of his phrases so laconic and slow.
Seems like this tiny being
Is now singing expressly for us!

O deceits so beloved by my heart,
O delusions of my infant years!
Can’t get rid of you on such a day,
When the meadows are in full green.

Having lit the roof’s tiling
And warmed up the pine–tree’s wood,
The spring’s late sun
Is rising higher and higher.

5. SEPTEMBER
The rain is pouring large peas,
The wind’s in fits, and the expanse is not clear.
And the disheveled poplar is cloaked
With the silvery inside of its leaves.

But look: through a hole in the cloud,
As if through a stone–slab arch,
A first beam is struggling to fly
Into this realm of fog and gloom.

So the expanse is not curtained forever
With clouds, and it was not in vain,
The nut–tree started to shine in late September
Blushing like a young maid.

Now then, painter, snatch out
Brush after brush, and paint
This girl for me on a canvass,
Let her be fire–gold and garnet–colored.

Paint me a young princess in a crown,
Unsteady as a sapling tree,
With a smile sliding uneasily
On her tear–strewn young face.

The rain is pouring large peas…

7. WHO RESPONDED TO ME
Who responded to me in the heart of the forest?
Was it an old oak whispering to a pine tree,
Or was it a rowan that creaked far off,
Or was it ocarina singing of a goldfinch,
Or was it the robin my little friend
Who suddenly answered to me at the sunset?

Who responded to me in the heart of the forest?
Was it you who recalled in spring
The years we had that are gone,
And our troubles, and our hardships,
Our wanderings in distant lands —
Was it you who had scorched my soul?

Who responded to me in the heart of the forest?
Morning or evening, in cold and in heat,
I always hear some indistinct echo,
As if some breath of boundless love,
Love that made my tremulous verse
Strive to you out the palms of my hands…

2. SPRING’S MOVEMENTS
Dear friend, every day
I am lost at that hillside.
A laboratory of spring days
Can be seen around.

In every teeny–weeny plant,
As if in a live little retort,
Solar fluid is foaming
And boiling all by itself.

Having studied these tiny retorts,
Like a chemist or a doctor,
A rook walks along the road
In long violet feathers.

He carefully analyzes
His lesson by a notebook
And he gathers large nourishing worms
In store for his children.

And there, on hummocks under the aspens,
To celebrate the sunrise,
Hares have a round dance
With ancient lamentations.

Just like little children,
Clasping their little paws together,
Are monotonously talking
Of their hare wrongs.

And every moment these days,
Over the songs and dances,
The sun’s visage is blazing
Filling the earth with fairy–tales.

And probably it would bend over
Our ancient forest corner,
And it would smile unwittingly
At our forest miracles.

4. GREEN BEAM
Gleaming in its golden mounting
Flush with the blue sea,
A white–domed town is dozing,
Reflected in the depth.

It emerged from aggregation
Of a white ridge of clouds
Where the sun blazes out of the water
For a moment now and then.

I will set off to see
Those distant lands,
I will find the road
To the palace of white domes.

I will open all the gates
Of those cloudy heights.
Someone will cast me a green beam
From the setting eye.

A beam that’s like an emerald,
A key to golden happiness.
I will get you anyway,
My feeble green beam.

But bulwarks turn pale,
Towers are falling far away,
The green beam’s fading,
Far above the ground.

Only he whose spirit is young,
And whose body’s eager and mighty,
Will break into the white–domed town
And snatch the green beam!

6. AUTUMN
When the day is over, and Nature
Cannot choose the lighting at its will,
The ample spaces of autumn groves
Rise in the air as neat clean houses.
Hawks live there, and crows spend their nights,
And clouds roam high above like ghosts.

The substance of autumn leaves has shrunk
And covered the entire ground. Far off there
A huge creature on four legs
Is walking to the misty village bellowing.
Ox, Ox! Are you not king any more?
The maple leaf reminds us of amber.

The Spirit of Autumn, give me the power of pen!
The air’s build implies the presence of diamond.
The ox has disappeared round the corner.
And the sun’s mass,
A misty ball, is hanging over the earth
Blood–staining the earth’s edge in its twinkling.

A big bird is flying below,
Rolling its round eyes from under its eyelids.
A human is felt in its movements.
At least, it surely is hidden
In its embryo between the two broad wings.
A beetle has slightly opened his house between the leaves.

The Autumn’s Architecture. And the arrangement
Therein of the air space, the grove, the stream,
Arrangement of animals and humans,
When little rings and curls of leaves
Fly in the air — and a special light —
That’s what we should choose from other signs.

A beetle has slightly opened his house between the leaves
And is peeping out with his horns stuck out.
The beetle has dug out various rootlets for himself
And is stowing them into a heap;
Next, he sounds his teeny–weeny trumpet
And disappears again like a teeny–weeny god.

But then the wind comes. All that used to be clean,
And spacious, and shining, and dry,
All this becomes gray, and hazy, and unpleasant,
And undistinguishable. The wind drives smoke,
Rotates the air, throws leaves in heaps
And blows the surface of the earth up in powder.

And then all nature starts to freeze.
A maple leaf rings like copper
Hitting against a tiny twig.
And we must understand that it is just a sign,
Sent to us all by Nature for some reason
On entering another season.