Мария Визи - A moongate in my wall: собрание стихотворений

I

Above the city night is soaring, till
each sound grows softer, duller every chord.
And you, my soul, are keeping silence still,
have mercy for the souls of marble, Lord.

And to this speech my soul did answer give
(as though a harp was singing in the skies):
«Why was I ever made to come and live
within this hum an frame, which I despise?

I hastened towards a glory new and rich,
leaving my home; I must have been insane,
for me this earth is now a ball, to which
the prisoner is fastened with a chain.

And, oh, this love, how I have grown to hate
this illness, of which none on earth are free,
which ever darkens with its shade the fate
of worlds so wondrous, although strange to me.

And if there is one thing that keeps me sealed
to shining planets and to days of old,
that thing is grief, my only trusted shield,
that thing is sorrow, full of scorn, and cold».

II
The clouds were covered with a greenish rust,
the golden sunset turned into gray,
and i addressed my body: «Now you must
reply to all the soul has had to say!»

And to my speech my body answered so —
a common body, but with blood aflame:
«The meaning of this life I do not know,
though I have heard that «love» can be its name.
(…)
A woman, too, I love…but when 1 kiss
her lowered eyes, it is a strange thing,
and I am drunk, and overcome with bliss,
as in a storm, or drinking from a spring.

And yet for all I want or take today,
for all my dreams, and all my joys and sorrow
as well befits a man, I will repay
with that sure peril which will come tomorrow.»

III
And when the word of God was set aflame
as Big Dipper in the darkness blue,
the body and the soul before me canie,
and asked of me: «Who, questioner, are you?»

I lowered at the impudent my eyes,
and slowly condescended to reply:
«Pray, answer, do you think a dog is wise
that howls when the moon is bright on high?

Then can it be for you to question me,
to whom all time since worlds began to flower,
until the day that they will cease to be
is but the smallest fraction of an hour?

Me, who, like lgdrazil, the tree, does grow
through Universes seven times seven,
whose eyes regard as equal dust below
the meadows of the earth and those of Heaven?
I am who sleeps…

It's yes and no. A star on high
burns bright a hundred thousand years.
The star burns bright. The years go by,
and so an era disappears.

There is no joy. The world is still
and sad, and through the icy sting
of the ethereal spaces, spring,
carrying roses in her hand,
flies to the sad and silent land.

The land of Hafiz calls me back, to rove
where my Gulnara's gaze shone green and bright,
and tentwise over her and me above
was spread the sapphire chasuble of night.

And memory, deprived of all these things,
looks everywhere for landmarks of that vale
where waits the lute, forsaken, and where sings
to ageless rose, an ageless nightingale.

I am filled with a sadness by whispering grass —
it will wither, and roses will die and decay,
and your own precious body will also, alas,
be changed into flowers, and turned into clay.

All memory of us will vanish. And then
skilled fingers will fashion a beautiful thing,
a pitcher of clay, which will live once again
and be filled to its wide golden throat at spring.

And someone, perhaps, by the well where they meet
embracing each other, with sunset aglow,
will drop that dear clay, which will slip to her feet
and ring as it breaks into fragments below.

At times when the spotted moon
with torn and ragged clouds is strewn;
at times when in the city stream
the isle of dead its last does dream,
and every leaf on every tree
is full of spring impurity,
— then, hiding in the twilight thick,
a man will make his step more quick,
and hasten from that road and past
where crosses come to life and stare,
and on one's breath a shadow cast
from rocky height that rise up there…
— There by the cemetery wall,
you stood with me, — do you recall?
And fresher than a mountain stream
the April kiss to us did seem.

From my childhood, you were always near me—
in a woman's tender first embrace,
in the floor that bore my infant footsteps,
in the first warm sunlight on my face.

After that, you always walked beside me,
gave me Paris in the month of May,
Andalusian gardens, Roman sunrise,
— speaking Russian all along my way.

Then, I thought — not knowing you were with me —
that it was myself I used to hear;
there was too much noise and too much gladness
drowning out all else in my young ear.
It is only now, when all is quiet,
that I have been able to divine
finally, the voice — in all the stillness —
which I long ago mistook for mine.
Now I know: if ever I was worthy
in this life, from very early youth;
if at any time my earthly falsehood
had in any way resembled truth;

if I kissed a woman without wounding,
felt a flower, and it never died,
— it was all because you leaned to touch me,
all because you never left my side.

And of all the things you did, the wisest
was that all day long till night would fall
you were always able to protect me
from myself, most dangerous of all.

Hot as a bonfire is the summer noon,
but in this wood relief awaits you still,
the morning freshness will not leave it soon,
and it is all suffused with early chill.

Stay for a while. Sit in the nut-grove bower
upon this hidden moss-grown stump, and hear,
while drinking in the languor of the hour,
the wondrous tale unfolding for your ear.

A leaf is wafted to the mossy ground;
fragrant, the little mushrooms upward reach;
a sigh, a rustle, whisperings… the sound,
insatiable, of creation's speech.

By the starry sky and my own soul
You proclaim that You indeed exist.

As an infant blind from the beginning,
never having known his mother's face,
yet remembers whispering and singing,
hands caressing tenderly and bringing
gentle warmth and never-ending grace,
so do I, not having ever seen You,
know You, feel Your breath from where I stand,
hear Your song, Your whisper understand,
and against all human earthly reason
recognize the warmth that is Your hand.

Of course, it's fair! Not in the present
the end of which it cannot see
and not in that which it bewails
or does not have the strength to be.

But in the changing succession
of suddenly bedazzled days,
its gift of momentary gladness
the transient kindness of its ways.

So all around us, and forever:
under a dagger's constant aim
people will kiss and gather flowers
and build their houses just the same.

In spite of all the grief of partings,
of all the hands wrung in despair,
of all premeditated falsehood,
it still will be forever fair!

Children are taught in textbooks
that stars are so far away —
I somehow never believed them,
those things they used to say.

I used to love as a child
to stay awake in bed:
and stars would ever so lightly
rain tinkling round my head.

From the blackened boughs of chestnuts
I would shake them down to the sand,
and, filling my pockets with them,
could buy the wealth of the land.

Since then I've been mean and stingy,
— oh heart! — but, forsaking youth,
I never forgot, growing older,
my childhood's merry truth.

We live low down on the ground
and the sky is so far, and yet —
I know that the stars are near us
and can be easily met.

In your plain little coat and kerchief,
so familiar and dear, you stand,
the key to our promised heaven
you hold in your empty hand.

Let's set out once again together!
The hills ever darker grow.
Does it matter that we are tired?
We've so little left to go.

If only we're never parted
in the lonely course of our fate,
if we only have strength together
to reach the Highest Gate!

Once again, let us bless each other
as we used to, and never fear —
they will let us enter together,
that's long been decided, dear.

Guided by some lightly winging spirit
far beyond the sea the birds have flown.
On this dark and bleak November morning,
why do you and I stay home alone?

Maybe we should follow — take a knapsack,
staff and flask, some good and trusted books,
and pursue the swiftly flying swallows
over woods and meadowlands and brooks?

Only those who linger are un able
to partake of joys on Earth arrayed.
Every turnpike, boundary and barrier
we would pass, unseen and unafraid.

Surely then, at break of day tomorrow
you and I would reach the rosy haze
over gleaming rocks and crested breakers,
slender palms, and golden blessed days!

And as surely, to the fullest measure,
we who dared would be repaid indeed
for the grain of utter faith within us,
for that single mustard seed!