A moongate in my wall: собрание стихотворений - [58]

an oldster — who had stacks of books,

and knew this one, that one. Yet

that's not the reason why my friend

would urge me — on the run — to come

and meet him, but because he thought

that meeting would bring joy to both.

We'd grasp each other in a flash,

we share one sorrow, speak one tongue,

the shade of a forgotten bard!

I planned to go so many times,

but rain, some business, or «too late»,

«not in the mood», «he's indisposed» —

and next I heard it: «He has died».

My visit cancelled now, for good,

and who can tell me «it's put off?»

[1950s]

537. The Snake

Silent all its life, it produces beautiful

music after death.

The earth is dry, the summer has been hot.

Dead russet stubble bristles in the rocks

of my small garden, few and pale the blooms

on gently tended shrubs.

The air is still.

Without a rustle over sand and clay,

graceful and grey, slithers a winding snake

and disappears between the cracks of stone,

small silent creature, harmless, in its home.

Night smoothes away day's blemishes and scars,

and grasses reach to feel her cooling hand.

I pick a banjo from my wall, to strum.

Its tightly covered snakeskin body sings.

[1950s]

538. Goodbye for Now [241]

For V.V.

You swerved from the road and you went away. I said goodbye to you,

but that was for now;

We will meet again, though we do not know yet where or how.

Perhaps in this room where I write. You will open the door

— oh you won't need to knock, you can hurry in as you have before

because I will always wait.

Or on some roseate bridge as I cross a golden strait

at sunset when over the bar

the white fog enters warily into the bay

you will ride in the other direction and I will see

a sudden glimpse of your face rushing toward me

expected and unexpected, as in a dream…

Or perhaps very far

in the hill of Manchuria covered with cedars and grapes on the lower

slopes,

where the tiger lilies (remember those tiger lilies?)

grow thick on the valley floor

you will wade toward me across the shallow mountain stream

— as before?

We shall meet again. You will see.

Someday our lives will find

a pattern familiar to us, a pattern so designed

as to bring us close somewhere in this vast world — oh, yes, vast still

though almost all discovered and charted, brook, tree and hill.

You and I

will catch up with one another walking perhaps outside

Shanghai

in a field near the Temple of Horrors where the purple idols stare

with bulging eyes…

And it may be too

as I turn the corner off Corraterie around the fountain where

geraniums flame

that you

will be doing the same

and you and I will meet

where the old watchmaker keeps his crack-in-the-wall on that cobblestone

street.

For every wall has a door. I shan't despair.

In Viipuri at Christmas I don't yet know what year

(or even century if we're still living here)

as I watch the skaters circle the pond blue frozen

when the stars begin to ring from the frost at some hour chosen

you will appear

somehow somewhere

in what shape? — even that is not given me to know.

Over the globe bright miniature flags pinned, saying

that we have stood, lived, walked together long ago

at each pricked point. We will meet again

because 1 know that you, not only I,

visit them often nor ever will cease to fly

to all these places or cross the sea by ship or earth by train

and even jog by donkey on covered cart over the parched and unpaved

China plain…

And someday under one such miniature marker grown to be

a banner swaying

in the blue wind across the entire sky

you will meet with me

and then… after th at… only then we will say

goodbye.

7 June 1963

539. «My dear, my dear…»

My dear, my dear,

Now that I have to go, and know I'm going,

There are so many things I have to say —

So many things that, without knowing.

I've left unfinished here

Till this last day —

Sit near me, listen, and perhaps together

We will recall, before I break the tether,

questions unanswered, prayers unspoken,

And if there is no time, perhaps my eyes

Will leave for you a token

Of sunlit skies

That we have watched together, and of dreams

That I have shared with you, and you with me!

This is a very vast and lonely sea

That I am set to sail, and yet it seems

That I am not afraid. The guiding hand

Of a wise Pilot comes to beckon me

Across the blue expanse to a far land

Of peace and calm and beauty.

You, my dear,

Staying behind, you must not ever fear

This life!

If I could only tell

As clearly, somehow, as a silver bell

Might ring through the clear air of a bright day,

That I will never really be away

From you; not ever…

Will you try

To walk on, bravely, though a clouded sky

May threaten, though above a barren field

Thunder may roll, please promise not to yield

To doubt — remember always, as you grope

In darkest thickets — there is always hope.

— I am a little weary. Will you bring

A glass of water for me? Make it cold.

Thank you. That's better…

There's another thing

You must remember — that I've always told:

There is no white or black or yellow race,

But only Human. All are made the same,

For it is not the color of the face

Or the variety of given name

That shape the heart and educate the mind;

It is not what you see, but what you find.

— Oh, love, it seems I'm only getting started,