Poetry

Childhood Has Ended

trans. Russian Richard Lourie In memory it will be like this — the Dnieper River, Trukhanov Island, springtime, a near crimson sunset . . . us running together, arms racing in air. A nameless sadness went through my heart. Why? Weren't we together. Us three. At our games. But then evening fell. Time to leave….

Delphi the Second Day

Here the restless voice consents to love The simple stone, The flagstones that time serves and delivers, The olive tree whose strength has the taste of dry stone. The footstep in its true peace. The restless voice Happy beneath the rocks of silence, And the infinite, indefinite reply Of the herd-bells, shore or death. Your…

Adam

trans. Russian Richard Lourie Having looked all around with an easy gaze, matting the grass as he walked that first day, he lay down in the shade of a fig tree and fell asleep, his hands behind his head. His sleep was sweet and deep and free beneath the blue peace of Eden's sky. ….

The Ravine

There was a sword Struck in the stone's mass. Its handle was rusted, the ancient blade Had reddened the stone's grey flank. And you knew You had to seize all this absence with both hands And pull the dark flame from its sheath of night. Some words were carved in the stone's blood, They told…

To the Translator

trans. Russian Richard Lourie Whether your prey's Virgil, lark of the fields, or Baudelaire the albatross, or nightingale Verlaine, remember, no bird free as these ever yields to lures and traps without your craft and pain. Dear poet, catcher of birds, without deceit and ruses, without some violence, you don't stand a chance, though you…

The Iron Bridge

There must surely be, at the end of a long street Where I walked as a boy, a pool of oil, Heavy rectangle of death beneath the dark sky. Then poetry Separated her waters from all others, No beauty no color restrained her, Her desire was the iron and the night. She nurses A long…