Andante (translation of Innokenty Annensky)

Here is the first of beautiful pieces from an Annensky’s cycle ‘Poetry in prose’, published  in 1908.

 

 

A July day passed by capriciously, windy and cloudy: now and then, out of a thundercloud, or from trees, tickling drops fell and crumbled, and rarely the sky pierced them with steel beams. Others it didn’t have; and only the foliage was tousled, flinging the lustreless underside of its depths up. Thanks God, it is gone. The evening has been reigning for a long time already. Above there is no cloud, not a stripe or spot… Now, pure and barren, the sky gazes down at us, and the look at it is whitened, as if I’m blind. I do not see the road, but certainly it is black and soft: springs shudder, hoofs slightly clatter and squelch. The fog creeps and spreads everywhere, thin and not too chilly yet. The road’s surroundings turn into young wood. Bushes either encircle us so narrowly that black petals leave wet marks on our cooled faces, or escape… and at some moments it seems to me that these are not the bushes but air spots that wandered across the vault during the day; only now, mixed with mist, they stir the heart with some vague reproach, or probably a remembrance … And it’s strange how this foggy night brings us closer to everything that we are not, and how alien our voices to each other are, leaving us in search for souls in a terrifying night’s fluctuation …

Throw the reins away and give me your hand. Let our old horse rest…

Bushes have disappeared somewhere. There, far below, a cold strip of the river flickers and fades, and near a pale twinkle of a ferry looms … Don’t speak! Listen to the silence, listen to your heartbeats! Even hide your hand in your sleeve to feel them. We’ll be together, but apart. And let other, elusive ways bring our shadows that dissolved in the fog closer, merge and become one shadow … So silent … One a.m.. .. Then one more hour…and more … and enough … Everything is quiet … You, the lamenting, the calling ones, stay silent too. How good it feels! … And you, life, continue! I’m not afraid of your passing, and I don’t count your minutes. Anyway, life, you can’t run away from me, because you are me, and no one else – of this I’m sure …

The original

Yelena, 2012, Copyright

Wait for me

Wait for me, and I’ll return,
Wait, and I will come.
Wait when heavy yellow rains
Try to bring you down.

Wait through summer’s wasting heat,
Wait through falling snow,
Wait when others still repeat
Not to stay alone.

Wait with hope when letters stop,
Strong and tough just be…
Turn away from those who’re stern,
From their grief stay free.

Wait for me, and I’ll return
No illusions..Try
To escape the ones who mourn,
Keep away your heart.

Let my son and mother cry
And believe I am dead.
And ignore friends’ tears around
When weak hope is spent.

Bitter wine they’ll drink..Forget,
Their compassion, too.
Wait for me, believe instead..
Pray and smile once more.

Wait for me, and I’ll return.
I will go through flame.
I’ll be back to you, I’ll burn
Any threat’s disgrace.

They will never understand
How among the fire
Out of lethal empty space
I have come alive.

Only you and I will know why
I am at home again..
Why you’ve learned to wait in time
Like nobody has.

 

(Konstantin Simonov, 1941)

 

 

©Yelena M.

 

The original

This poem was written and dedicated to V.Serova by Konstantin Simonov (1915-1979) in 1941. During the Great Patriotic War Simonov was a frontline correspondent for the newspaper ‘Krasnaya Zvezda’(‘Red Star’) . It was published in the newspaper ‘Pravda’ in February 1942, when the nazi forces were repulsed from Moscow. Soldiers cut it out of newspapers, copied it as they sat in their dugouts, learned it by heart and sent it in letters to their wives and sweethearts. It was found in the breast pockets of the wounded and the dead. Other frontline poems of Simonov were also tremendously popular.

In slow motion…

 

In slow motion an autumn day is coming,
A yellow leaf is spinning tardily,
The day’s quite fresh, the air divinely clear -
My soul shall not avoid its unseen fading.

Thus, it grows older with every day,
And every year spins like yellow leafs,
As I enliven memories, seems to me
That autumns of the years past were not so sad.

 

 

(Alexander Blok, ‘Ante Lucem’, 5.01.1900)

 

 

The original

 

 

©Yelena M.

My veins are filled with sun

 

My veins are filled with sun –
Not blood -
Brown is a hand – already like straw.
Alone I am with this strong love,
With love to my own wandering soul.

Waiting for a grasshopper
I count to ten,
Gathering flower-stalks to taste it…
– Feeling so simple, feeling so strange
The transience of life –
And me.

 

(Marina Tsvetaeva, 15.05.1913)

 

 

The original

 

 

©Yelena M.

One more

Ardent and stormy was the day
Trying to seize the banner blue,
But night does come, and shadows
Pierce the exhausted through.

So few they are! In rays
Of weakened hope one more
Proud paladin sails away:
A fallow strap of what was golden

Is all that’s left
And bitter taste…of a remembrance

———————
Like in a half-burnt letter
The sole confession’s trace.

 

 

(Innokenty Annensky, Quiet Songs, p. 1904)

 

The original

 

©Yelena M.

 

After the Concert

Black skies descended to the alley;
My heart is weary – not to overcome this night;
Obscure voices, bonfires quenched -
Is this what’s left of dreams in sight?

Oh, how dark the satin of her dresses was,
Too pale the décolleté between the shoulder straps,
How I pitied those dissolving eyes
And snowy leather of her hands in devout prayers…

And how much soul was scattered there
Amidst the strewn, rebellious, numb!
And sounds, once brought up in silence,
Those violet and starred gracious ones!…

Like from a thread, in agitation torn,
Among the beams of moon, so gently bent,
Into the dewy grass the amethysts are rolling
To fade without a trace.

(Innokenty Annensky, ‘The Cypress Casket’, from ‘Trefoil of the crowd’, p.1910)

The original

©Yelena M.

The Outcast

 

Despair of a tortured heart,
I summon you to be my witness;
I didn’t sleep in sublime silence
And never searched for tempting Eden.

I didn’t want a quiet repose
Afraid to leave the accursed ones -
Attracted by the fortunes poignant,
Allured by rejected brothers.

Not angels, demons with me walked
Along the sad and gloomy path;
My days in spheres of the Earth
Are scattered like a pile of dust.

 

(Konstantin Balmont, ‘Silence’, 1897)

 

This piece was influenced by life and poetry of ‘les poètes maudits’(‘the accursed poets’ in French) – Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine etc. A poète maudit is a poet living a life outside or against society. More.

The original

 

 

©Yelena M.