Яна Кане - Зимородок

In the chamber where I’m dwelling

Lived a sorceress before:

When the moon is new her shadow

Yet appears beside the door.

By the threshold stands her shadow,

In its customary place,

As elusively and sternly

It is gazing at my face.

I myself am not of those

Whom another's charms can sway.

I myself… But no, my secrets

I don't freely give away.

A winter thaw is almost bare of beauty —

A soupy mix of sand and salt and sod.

A world made up of icicles and bleakness

Does not reveal the master plan of God.

In order to discern it, gaze intently,

But not at faces, nor the many books

Held close to faces. Not a page within them

Says anything, no matter how you look.

Perhaps the branch that spreads its patterns over

The human mass that hurries through the rain,

May sketch a pictogram in otherworldly language,

Make the preliminary outline plain.

Between two languages my words have lost their way.

My mouth is numb to either tongue today.

Hour after hour drop down and are absorbed

By CNN, report after report.

I wanted poetry to glue and hold together

This shredded day. But it unravels further.

I'm sinking. Yet a hundred years from now

What will it matter? Who will even know?

Silence is wisdom's path to glory (so they say).

The bitch of poetry is not in heat today,

For all the males are dead or far away.

So let the Internet and wine help keep me warm.

My hopes lie in my tongues. Though now struck dumb,

I know it's «silence, till the poems will come».

I started having conversations with my cat

And with my radio. So, Siri, tell me, friend,

What will it lead to? Cobwebbed, frail

Will I be talking to my shadow in the end?

I started having conversations with myself.

I wish it were a witty repartee, a joke.

Instead, it’s trial by combat with the truth,

A truth that does not hesitate to stab, to choke.

I started having conversations with my dad.

For years, we used to fight, to rage and rave.

But here I am: gray hair, his face – now my face,

Bawling, as I uproot the nettles on his grave.

In the morning, cold white light

Blankets all like heavy snow.

There’s my neighbor walking by;

His tracks fill with drifting glow.

“Neighbor!” I call loud and clear.

But my neighbor does not hear.

He is walking, white-haired, tired

Further, further,

Higher, higher…

“You, Russians, always complicate everything,”

Sighed the Czech poet and translator,

Shutting my book;

“Who needs rhymed poetry nowadays?

Maybe just the kids!

Today, rhymes are as incongruous

As a row of buttons on a naked body!”

I kept silent.

I was reluctant to admit

that in my childhood,

whenever I came to spend the summer

at my granny’s,

I loved to sift through

the multicolored buttons

in a tin box.

Made of mother of pearl, glass, steel,

In all shapes and colors —

to me, they seemed like a genuine

treasure!

I even wanted to filch one —

A yellow button with a star, —

In order to trade it for a slingshot…

And, when I and my friend, Sashka,

ran away to the lake,

we would come home

only at the end of the day,

when the June sun

was sinking below the horizon,

like a large red button.

Sometimes it happens like this:

You are still together.

In the morning,

You drink the stone-cold coffee,

You finish off the omelet with bacon

(That is, by the way, over-salted as usual).

But already,

Somewhere in the bedroom,

On the upper shelf of the closet,

The blue suitcase

Has impatiently clicked its lock.

Sometimes at night I cry and whimper.

But don’t you dare to howl along.

Stay down, puppy, and remember

I am the boss here, wise and strong.

Yet you jump up. You lick the tears

Right off my cheeks. You break my rule.

“Don’t cry, boss of my heart. I’m here

To care for you, my restless dear,

My doggie god ….

My fool…”

Each recently deceased person

Is granted the right

To a single short phone call —

Just long enough to say

That all is well.

Usually, the call goes to the kids,

less frequently to the parents;

husbands and wives get called quite a bit

(sometimes even the exes!);

almost no one calls

the hospital,

the workplace,

the church,

the bank.

No one ever tried to get through

to a televised call-in with the President,

the seance with that spirit medium

famous for his TV show.

It is said that these numbers

aren’t even in the telephone directory.

There are only these:

mama, papa,

son, daughter,

beloved.

I shed one language after another:

Russian, Romanian,

English, and another one, and another one…

Here I am, stripped bare

Of my wordy wardrobe.

Struck dumb.

All I can wrap around myself now is

weeping.

In silence.

Малышка-паучишка

Решила влезть на крышу,

Ползёт по водостоку

Всё выше, выше, выше.

И вот она почти что

Взобралась на карниз.

Но вдруг весенний ливень

Смыл паучишку вниз!

Гляди, сметает солнце

Лучами облака.

И к цели паучишка

Придёт наверняка!

Если сидишь

молча,

есть что услышать.

Если лежишь

с закрытыми глазами,

есть что увидеть.

Даже если это молчание,

даже если это темнота,

есть на что обратить внимание.

Просто отыщи это.