Читать книгу In Praise of Poetry - Ольга Седакова - Страница 55

FIRST INTRODUCTION

Pray listen, my good people,

to a story of love and death,

listen whoever wants to,

for it’s within our every breath.

For the begging heart sends up such thanks

as if for its daily bread

when someone is lost,

when someone is dead,

or just as alone as we.

Let’s sew a dress of darkness,

a monk’s cloak of old,

let’s ask for water from the well

and the northern winter’s cold—

a winter lovely as topaz

though with a crack inside.

Like white topaz held to the eye,

when we lean to look outside

and into the streetlamp’s light.

Fate alone is like fate

and unlike anything else:

not like the far distant sail,

not like a shield, a horn, or the Grail,

or whatever waits by the gate.

And those who know this are not sad

that light will go away like snow.

My soul, be whatever you want,

but be merciful too:

for here we come with life’s knapsack,

lingering by the exit:

and I see that all fear the road.

Yet you will like them, those two,

who occupy my word.

We may have lived long ago, yet

like water hollowing the riverbed

when we speak it is always to say:

Pray listen to the living!

So when I start my speech, it seems

I am forever catching

at the passing hemline of a cloak,

and I seem to be always saying, “farewell,

you may not know me, but hear this:

like all the rest, I love.”

And if all this is only death

and around me is only hell,

I’ll still be kneeling before those knees,

still won’t release my gaze.

And if I am to go on,

and close my eyes, forget my words,

unclench the hands of the mind,

that cloak will speak instead of me,

like my own blood inside.

And though I’ll lie—don’t interrupt:

for I know where I’m bound,

I know my hands are red with blood

and my heart lies underground.

But the light that was my very light,

and carried the third light high,

was the life of me, was the truth of me

and was more me than I.