Nature and Elements

All Day Long

All day long in fog and wind,
The waves have flung their beating crests
Against the palisades of adamant.
My boy, he went to sea, long and long ago,
Curls of brown were slipping underneath his cap,
He looked at me from blue and steely eyes;
Natty, straight and true, he stepped away,
My boy, he went to sea.
All day long in fog and wind,
The waves have flung their beating crests
Against the palisades of adamant.

Winter Sky

Ice-chips plucked whole from the smoke,
the past week’s stars all frozen in flight,
Head over heels the skater’s club goes,
clinking its rink with the peal of night.


Step slow, slower, slow-er, skater,
pride carving its trace as you race by.
each turn’s a constellation cut there,
scratched by a skate in Norway’s sky.


The air is fettered in frozen iron.
Oh, skaters! There – it’s all the same,
that, like snake’s eyes set in ivory,
night’s on earth, a domino game:


that moon, a numb hound’s tongue
is there, frozen tight: that mouths like
the forgers of coins’ – are stung,
filled with lava of breathtaking ice.

Winter Sky

Ice-chips plucked whole from the smoke,
the past week’s stars all frozen in flight,
Head over heels the skater’s club goes,
clinking its rink with the peal of night.


Step slow, slower, slow-er, skater,
pride carving its trace as you race by.
each turn’s a constellation cut there,
scratched by a skate in Norway’s sky.


The air is fettered in frozen iron.
Oh, skaters! There – it’s all the same,
that, like snake’s eyes set in ivory,
night’s on earth, a domino game:


that moon, a numb hound’s tongue
is there, frozen tight: that mouths like
the forgers of coins’ – are stung,
filled with lava of breathtaking ice.

Winter Sky

Ice-chips plucked whole from the smoke,
the past week’s stars all frozen in flight,
Head over heels the skater’s club goes,
clinking its rink with the peal of night.


Step slow, slower, slow-er, skater,
pride carving its trace as you race by.
each turn’s a constellation cut there,
scratched by a skate in Norway’s sky.


The air is fettered in frozen iron.
Oh, skaters! There – it’s all the same,
that, like snake’s eyes set in ivory,
night’s on earth, a domino game:


that moon, a numb hound’s tongue
is there, frozen tight: that mouths like
the forgers of coins’ – are stung,
filled with lava of breathtaking ice.

Winter Nears

Winter nears. Once more
the bear’s secret retreat
will vanish under mud’s floor,
to a child’s fretful grief.

Huts will wake in the water,
reflecting paths of smoke,
circled by autumn’s tremor
lovers meet by the fire to talk.

Denizens of the harsh North
whose roof is the clear air,
‘In this sign conquer’, set forth,
marks each unreachable lair.

I love you, provincial haunts,
off the map, the road, past the farms,
the more tired and faded the book,
the greater for me its charms.

Slow files of carts lumbering by
you spell out an alphabet flowing
from meadow to meadow. And I
found you always my favourite reading.

And it’s suddenly written again,
here in first snow is the spider’s
cursive script, runners of sleighs,
where ice on the page embroiders.

A silvered hazel October.
Pewter glow since frost began.
Autumn twilight, of Chekhov,
Tchaikovsky, and Levitan.

White Night

I keep thinking of times that are long past,
Of a house in the Petersburg Quarter.
You had come from the steppeland Kursk Province,
Of a none-too-rich mother the daughter.


You were nice, you had many admirers.
On that distant white night we were sitting
On your window-sill, looking from high on
On the phantom-like scene of the city.


The street-lamps, like gauze butterflies fluttering,
Had been touched by the chill of the morning.
My soft words, as I opened my heart to you,
Matched the slumbering vistas before us.


We were plighted with timid fidelity
To the very same nebulous mystery
As the cityscape spreading unendingly
Far beyond the Neva, through the distances.


In that far-off impregnable wilderness,
Wrapped in springtime twilight ethereal,
Woodland glades and dense thickets were quivering
With mad nightingales' thunderous paeans.


Crazy resonant warbling ran riot,
And the voice of this plain-looking songster
Sowed derangement, ecstatic delight
In the depth of the mesmerised copsewood.


To those parts Night, a barefoot vagabond,
Stole its way along ditches and fences.
From our window-sill, after it tagging,
Was the trail of our cooed confidences.


To the words of this colloquy echoing
In the orchards beyond the tall palings
Spreading branches of apple and cherry trees
Swathed themselves in their pearly-white raiment.


And the trees, like so many pale phantoms,
Waved their farewell, along the road thronging,
To White Night, that all-seeing enchanter,
Who was now to North Regions withdrawing.

Three Variants

1

When in front of you hangs the day with its
Smallest detail-fine or crude-
The intensely hot cracking squirrel-sounds
Do not cease in the resinous wood.


The high line of pine-trees stands asleep,
Drinking in and storing strength,
And the wood is peeling and drip by drip
Is shedding freckled sweat.


2


From miles of calm the garden sickens,
The stupor of the angered glen
Is more alarming than an evil
Wild storm, a frightful hurricane.


The garden's mouth is dry, and smells of
Decay, of nettles, roofing, fear…
The cattle's bellowing is closing
Its ranks. A thunderstorm is near.


3


On the bushes grow the tatters
Of disrupted clouds; the garden
Has its mouth full of damp nettles:
Such - the smell of storms and treasures.


Tired shrubs are sick of sighing.
Patches in the sky increase. The
Barefoot blueness has the gait of
Cautious herons in the marshes.


And they gleam, like lips that glisten,
When the hand forgets to wipe them:
Supple willow-switches, oak-leaves,
And the hoofprints by the horsepond.

There'll be no one in the house...

There'll be no one in the house
Save for twilight. All alone,
Winter's day seen in the space that's
Made by curtains left undrawn.


Only flash-past of the wet white
Snowflake clusters, glimpsed and gone.
Only roofs and snow, and save for
Roofs and snow-no one at home.


Once more, frost will trace its patterns,
I'll be haunted once again
By my last year's melancholy,
By that other wintertime.


Once more, I'll be troubled by an
Old unexpiated shame,
And the icy firewood famine
Will press on the window-pane.


But the quiver of intrusion
Through those curtains folds will run.
Measuring silence with your footsteps,
Like the future, in you'll come.


You'll appear there in the doorway
Wearing something white and plain,
Something in the very stuff from
Which the snowflakes too are sewn.

The Steppe

How lovely those journeys into quiet!
Boundless the steppe, like a seascape,
ants rustle, and the feather-grass sighs,
mosquitoes go whining through space.


The hayricks line up with the clouds,
volcano after volcano, they fade.
Grown silent, damp, the boundless steppe,
you drift, you’re buffeted, you sway.


The mist overtakes us, washes, a sea,
and burrs are clinging to stockings, today
it’s lovely to tramp the steppe’s shore,
you drift, you’re buffeted, you sway.


Is that a rick in the mist? Who knows?
Is that one ours? Yes, it’s found.
There! Yes, that’s it all right, though.
The rick, and the mist, and the steppe all round.


And the Milky Way slants towards Kerch,
like a path that cattle have stamped on.
Go past the houses, you’ll lose your breath,
on every side, broad, broad horizons.


Shadowy midnight stands by the way,
strewn with stars, that touch every verst,
and you can’t cross it, beyond the fence,
without trampling the universe.


When did the stars sweep down so low,
midnight sink so deep in tall grass,
and drenched muslin, afraid, aglow,
long for a dénouement at last?


Let the steppe judge, and night decide.
When, if not in the Beginning,
did Mosquitoes whine, Ants ride,
and Burrs go clinging to stockings?


Close them, my darling! Or go blind!
The whole steppe’s as before the Fall:
All, drowned in peace, like a parachute,
like a heaving vision, All.

The Steppe

How lovely those journeys into quiet!
Boundless the steppe, like a seascape,
ants rustle, and the feather-grass sighs,
mosquitoes go whining through space.


The hayricks line up with the clouds,
volcano after volcano, they fade.
Grown silent, damp, the boundless steppe,
you drift, you’re buffeted, you sway.


The mist overtakes us, washes, a sea,
and burrs are clinging to stockings, today
it’s lovely to tramp the steppe’s shore,
you drift, you’re buffeted, you sway.


Is that a rick in the mist? Who knows?
Is that one ours? Yes, it’s found.
There! Yes, that’s it all right, though.
The rick, and the mist, and the steppe all round.


And the Milky Way slants towards Kerch,
like a path that cattle have stamped on.
Go past the houses, you’ll lose your breath,
on every side, broad, broad horizons.


Shadowy midnight stands by the way,
strewn with stars, that touch every verst,
and you can’t cross it, beyond the fence,
without trampling the universe.


When did the stars sweep down so low,
midnight sink so deep in tall grass,
and drenched muslin, afraid, aglow,
long for a dénouement at last?


Let the steppe judge, and night decide.
When, if not in the Beginning,
did Mosquitoes whine, Ants ride,
and Burrs go clinging to stockings?


Close them, my darling! Or go blind!
The whole steppe’s as before the Fall:
All, drowned in peace, like a parachute,
like a heaving vision, All.

The Linden Avenue

A house of unimagined beauty
Is set in parkland, cool and dark;
Gates with an arch; then meadows, hillocks,
And oats and woods beyond the park.


Here, with their crowns each other hiding,
Enormous linden trees engage
In dusky, quiet celebration
Of their two hundred years of age.


And underneath their vaulted branches,
Across the regularly drawn
Symmetric avenues, grow flowers
In flower-beds upon a lawn.


Beneath the trees, on sandy pathways,
Not one bright spot relieves the dark,
Save-like an opening in a tunnel-
The distant entrance of the park.


But now the blossom-time is starting,
The walled-in linden trees reveal
And spread about within their shadow
Their irresistible appeal.


The visitors, in summer clothing,
While walking on the crunchy sand,
Breathe in unfathomable fragrance
Which only bees can understand.


This gripping scent is theme and subject,
Whereas-however well they look-
The flower-beds, the lawn, the garden,
Are but the cover of a book.


The clustered, wax-bespattered flowers
On massive trees, sedate and old,
Lit up by raindrops, burn and sparkle
Above the mansion they enfold.

Swifts (2)

At twilight the swifts have no power,
to hold back that pale blue coolness.
It bursts from throats, a clamour
an outpour that can’t grow less.

The swifts have no way, high
up there, overhead, of restraining
their clarion cries: ‘O, triumph,
see, see, how the earth’s receding!’

Like steam from a boiling kettle,
the furious flow rushes by –
‘See, see – no space for the earth
between the ravine and the sky.’

The garden scatters burnt-up beetles...

The garden scatters burnt-up beetles
Like brazen ash, from braziers burst.
I witness, by my lighted candle,
A newly blossomed universe.


And like a not yet known religion
I enter this unheard of night,
In which the shabbily-grey poplar
Has curtained off the lunar light.


The pond is a presented secret.
Oh, whispers of the appletree!
The garden hangs-a pile construction,
And holds the sky in front of me.

The garden scatters burnt-up beetles...

The garden scatters burnt-up beetles
Like brazen ash, from braziers burst.
I witness, by my lighted candle,
A newly blossomed universe.


And like a not yet known religion
I enter this unheard of night,
In which the shabbily-grey poplar
Has curtained off the lunar light.


The pond is a presented secret.
Oh, whispers of the appletree!
The garden hangs-a pile construction,
And holds the sky in front of me.

Stars were racing

Stars were racing; waves were washing headlands.
Salt went blind, and tears were slowly drying.
Darkened were the bedrooms; thoughts were racing,
And the Sphinx was listening to the desert.


Candles swam. It seemed that the Colossus'
Blood grew cold; upon his lips was spreading
The blue shadow smile of the Sahara.
With the turning tide the night was waning.


Sea-breeze from Morocco touched the water.
Simooms blew. In snowdrifts snored Archangel.
Candles swam; the rough draft of 'The Prophet'
Slowly dried, and dawn broke on the Ganges.

Stars were racing

Stars were racing; waves were washing headlands.
Salt went blind, and tears were slowly drying.
Darkened were the bedrooms; thoughts were racing,
And the Sphinx was listening to the desert.


Candles swam. It seemed that the Colossus'
Blood grew cold; upon his lips was spreading
The blue shadow smile of the Sahara.
With the turning tide the night was waning.


Sea-breeze from Morocco touched the water.
Simooms blew. In snowdrifts snored Archangel.
Candles swam; the rough draft of 'The Prophet'
Slowly dried, and dawn broke on the Ganges.

Storm-Wind


I am finished, but you live on.
And the wind, crying and moaning,
rocks the house and the clearing,
not each pine alone,
but all the trees together,
with the vast distance, whole,
like the hulls of vessels,
moored in a bay, storm-blown.
And it shakes them not from mischief,
and not with an aimless tone,
but to find, for you, from its grief,
the words of a cradle-song.

Spring (Fragment 3)

Is it only dirt you notice?
Does the thaw not catch your glance?
As a dapple-grey fine stallion
Does it not through ditches dance?


Is it only birds that chatter
In the blueness of the skies,
Sipping through the straws of sunrays
Lemon liturgies on ice?


Only look, and you will see it:
From the rooftops to the ground
Moscow, all day long, like Kitezh
Lies, in light-blue water drowned.


Why are all the roofs transparent
And the colours crystal-bright?
Bricks like rushes gently swaying,
Mornings rush into the night.


Like a bog the town is swampy
And the scabs of snow are rare.
February, like saturated
Cottonwool in spirits, flares.


This white flame wears out the garrets,
And the air, in the oblique
Interplace of twigs and birds, is
Naked, weightless and unique.


In such days the crowds of people
Knock you down; you are unknown,
Nameless; and your girl is with them,
But you, too, are not alone.

Spasskoe


In Spasskoe, unforgettable September sheds its leaves.
Isn’t it time to close up the summer-house?
Echo traps the thudding of axe-blows in the trees,
and, past the fence, barters a herd-boy’s shout.


Last night the marsh by the park shivered, too.
The moment the sun rises it vanishes.
The bluebell can’t drink the rheumatic dew,
and a dirty lilac stain soils the birches.


The wood’s downcast. It wants to sleep, as well,
under the snow, in the deep quiet of the bear’s den.
The park, gaping, framed by tree-trunks stands still,
in neat obituary-columns, its edges blackened.


Has the birch copse stopped fading, staining,
its shade more watery still, and growing thin?
And again, you’re, fifteen – it’s still complaining –
again – ‘oh child, oh, what shall we do with them?’


They’re already so many it’s time to stop playing.
They’re – birds in the bushes, mushrooms in the trees.
Already we’ve veiled our horizon with them, shrouding
each other’s landscape with fog-bound mysteries.


The comic, on the night of his death, typhus-stricken,
hears a peal: it’s Homeric laughter from the box.
Today in Spasskoe, the same grief, in hallucination,
stares, from the road, at a house of weathered logs.

Ploughing Time

What is the matter with the landscape?
Familiar landmarks are not there.
Ploughed fields, like squares upon a chessboard,
Today are scattered everywhere.


The newly-harrowed vast expanses
So evenly are spread about,
As though the valley had been spring-cleaned
Or else the mountains flattened out.


And that same day, in one endeavour,
Outside the furrows every tree
Bursts into leaf, light-green and downy,
And stretches skyward, tall and free.


No speck of dust on the new maples,
And colours nowhere are as clean
As is the light-grey of the ploughland
And as the silver-birch's green.

Ploughing Time

What is the matter with the landscape?
Familiar landmarks are not there.
Ploughed fields, like squares upon a chessboard,
Today are scattered everywhere.


The newly-harrowed vast expanses
So evenly are spread about,
As though the valley had been spring-cleaned
Or else the mountains flattened out.


And that same day, in one endeavour,
Outside the furrows every tree
Bursts into leaf, light-green and downy,
And stretches skyward, tall and free.


No speck of dust on the new maples,
And colours nowhere are as clean
As is the light-grey of the ploughland
And as the silver-birch's green.

Nostalgia


To give this book a dedication
The desert sickened,
And lions roared, and dawns of tigers
Took hold of Kipling.


A dried-up well of dreadful longing
Was gaping, yawning.
They swayed and shivered, rubbing shoulders,
Sleek-skinned and tawny.


Since then continuing forever
Their sway in scansion,
They stroll in mist through dewy meadows
Dreamt up by Ganges.


Creeping at dawn in pits and hollows
Cold sunrays fumble.
Funereal, incense-laden dampness
Pervades the jungle.

March


The sun is hotter than the top ledge in a steam bath;
The ravine, crazed, is rampaging below.
Spring -- that corn-fed, husky milkmaid --
Is busy at her chores with never a letup.


The snow is wasting (pernicious anemia --
See those branching veinlets of impotent blue?)
Yet in the cowbarn life is burbling, steaming,
And the tines of pitchforks simply glow with health.


These days -- these days, and these nights also!
With eavesdrop thrumming its tattoos at noon,
With icicles (cachectic!) hanging on to gables,
And with the chattering of rills that never sleep!


All doors are flung open -- in stable and in cowbarn;
Pigeons peck at oats fallen in the snow;
And the culprit of all this and its life-begetter--
The pile of manure -- is pungent with ozone.

March


The sun is hotter than the top ledge in a steam bath;
The ravine, crazed, is rampaging below.
Spring -- that corn-fed, husky milkmaid --
Is busy at her chores with never a letup.


The snow is wasting (pernicious anemia --
See those branching veinlets of impotent blue?)
Yet in the cowbarn life is burbling, steaming,
And the tines of pitchforks simply glow with health.


These days -- these days, and these nights also!
With eavesdrop thrumming its tattoos at noon,
With icicles (cachectic!) hanging on to gables,
And with the chattering of rills that never sleep!


All doors are flung open -- in stable and in cowbarn;
Pigeons peck at oats fallen in the snow;
And the culprit of all this and its life-begetter--
The pile of manure -- is pungent with ozone.