A moongate in my wall: собрание стихотворений

30 Oct. 1958

533. Lot's Wife [238]

I am Lot's wife. I couldn't walk away up foreign sands, away from that poor land where every stone was warm from my own touch and every door and window held my shadow, where I had walked those narrow streets of Sodom. There I had lived among familiar people and talked and had my various human dealings with neighbor women and with men who traded and knew me well and knew my husband Lot. Though truly they had differed with our thoughts and knew not God as Lot and I had known Him and wouldn't listen to His words of warnings, — they weren't worse than I: I didn't listen. I couldn't follow Lot on that safe trail hearing the wrath of vengeance on my town, hearing the fall of rocks and quake of hillside, hearing the roar of all-devouring flame, the crying agony of men and women: I couldn't run away: I stopped and turned — What matter that the price I paid was life, was immortality? Perhaps in that brief moment some friend or enemy before he died breathed easier because he glimpsed, half-blinded, through fire and smoke, beneath a fallen pillar, my shaking arms stretched in a last farewell?

238

English variant of the Russian poem «Жена Лота»; see poem 377.

1958

534. «Come to classroom, padre, while the students…»

Come to classroom, padre, while the students are not yet gathered for their next assignment. Come with me, padre, I will show you something for which I beg you to donate a moment. Your brothers, padre! See, — upon the tables — laid out and all prepared to be dissected. Oh, yours and mine. Just shut the door now, quiet… The overburdened, very good professor is right now having one last cup of coffee within the fold of his distinguished household. There — long, grey-white ones. How they must have worried and how they must be cold in this dank classroom. This is my thought (— will you forgive me, padre, for buttonholing you between the wardroom s where you disseminated consolation —) — This is my thought: perhaps they had no kinfolk to say goodbye and tuck them in for sleeping. Perhaps you missed them as they lay there dying. You and your colleagues; stand here in the doorway and make a sign above these proud dead people, say a few words, — because you have connections — to make it dignified, this their departure, as their last bell rings and their train pulls out. (This is not the beginning:) The quiet one are lying on their tables, all wrapped in white, all swaddled white like babies (born just a life ago, just a life, — whither is it gone now, that they are speechless, motionless, sightless, loveless, selfless?) Suddenly a fire alarm sounds. Noiselessly then the people wrapped in white, white-swaddled, shoeless, soundless, faceless, warily step one by one onto the fire escape and slither down, procession wise, to safety one after one, pouring from out their window winding lightly down, white sheets that wrap them trailing; down the black crooked iron stairway comes the procession, in disorted angels showing no faces — to escape the fire. piched the ground, the earth, the safety, And, having reached the ground, the earth, the safety they stop and stand and stare in scared amazement — What do they do now? Whither do they slither? Now they are safe, in what direction do they turn?

1958

535. Imitation [239]

A rose quartz vase shone on her dresser, and the sandalwood immortals stood, all seven, imported from a pine and dragon land once governed by the Son of Heaven. Upon her cold blue wall was hung a single silken-tasseled scroll brush-painted on parchment, with craggy mountains and a waterfall — the prized possession of her studio apartment. And, head benignly bowed, Kwan-Yin in jade graced her teak night stand and her mystic soul. Yet somehow this decor forever made the impression of stage props for a miscast role. As if these things were images in a glass that traveling by reflect their face and pass — a hollow echo's alien report from a forbidden city's empty court.

239

Kwan-Yin: Guanyin in contemporary transcription, the Chinese goddess of mercy, literally «the one who listens to sounds», i.e., to requests and supplications.

536. «Once on the Moika lived a man…» [240]

Once on the Moika lived a man — 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?»

240

Moika Street is in St. Petersburg. Variants in the manuscript: in the second line «an oldster — he had loads of books», in the third line «and knew so many people. Yet», and in the eighth line «We'd grasp each other just like that».

[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.

241

Por V.V. see nole on poem 54. Variants in (he manuscript: in the first line of (he first stanza «You turned from the road and w ent away. I said goodbye to you, but that was for now"; in the first line of the third stanza «Or on some bridge as I cross a golden strait"; in the fourth and fifth lines of the third stanza «I will suddenly see / a glimpse of your face rushing toward me». Temple of Horrors: a temple in Shanghai. Corraterie: see note on poem 393.

Viipuri: also known as Vyborg, a city and port in the Gulf of Finland, the «eastern capital» of Finland, seized by the Soviet Union in 1940.

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, And yet I feel that we will soon be parted, 1 tire so fast. Forgive me if I gasp, Here, let me have your little hand to clasp In mine for yet a little longer. Stay. I have to finish what I want to say. Because you are more generously blessed Than most, you are not better than the rest, Only more fortunate. So if you can, Be kind and gentle to your fellow man, As we are taught to be. And oh, my dear, Enjoy the wealth that you are offered here — Sunrise — and music — and the shape of trees — Soft growing grass — and world-encircling seas — Love for a man — the work you have to do — Friends travelling the very road as you — I hope that you will live and toil and play With all your heart, and all the time obey Your faith in the great Presence over all, Whether you win, or whether for a time Your footsteps falter in the slime Of difficulties, even if you fall, Remember, dear, that with your faith and will In days of darkness you are victor still. It s getting late, and you should be in bed, And surely there will be one more tomorrow — When I am gone, don't think of me as dead, Remember me with happiness, not sorrow … But we shall talk again … Good night, good night!

[1967]

540. «Somewhere…»

Somewhere there is a gate that I must find and open, take out the bolt and lilt the latch and push, and then the road ahead will stretch away smooth, clear and safe for me to walk at leisure; a small white gate, wrought in a low white fence, along the outskirts of this great dense wood. There must be somewhere in the tall brush and thicket on my trail a mark, a sign, perhaps a broken twig, a tree peculiarly bent, a stone lying against another; there must be somewhere an indication, maybe even arrow pointing that way, so that I may follow; it cannot be that I have not remembered those previous markings, and have lost the trail.

[1960s]

541. «High in the air, the high blue air above us…» [242]

High in the air, the high blue air above us, where birds and men fly peacefully together, for endless centuries, the long lost notes of many songs have floated by, unheard to living ears. We have not yet become quite strong enough to catch those songs and hear and tame them for the world to know, but they are there, for they were never lost completely. And if sometimes, in the haze along the fringes of this life we think we meet a sudden melody that we have never known, barely distinguished words, perhaps a rhyme that we reach out to touch — we vainly strain, but all that we can feel is some vague sense of beauty created somewhere once, and waiting for us, not quite completely lost, nor yet recaptured.

242

Variant in the last, line of the second stanza in the manuscript: «that we reach out to grasp».

[1960s]

542. «Can it be true, in hours of grief and anger…»

Can it be true, in hours of grief and anger that all one's past will disappear afar just like the soft sound of some forgotten music, like in the dark of night a fallen star?

[1980s]

543–561 My China [243]

243

With notation on the manuscript of the cycle «My China»: «Some time years ago, probably in the 60s.»

543. «I put my brushes carefully, one by one…»

Arranging the brushes, and picking the right

one to write a poem.

I put my brushes carefully, one by one, into their respective cones in the brass brush stand, meticulously smoothing each sensitive tuft with my fingers, to make a pinpoint end. I pull out the small white bone latch of my ink box, lifting its black and gold silk lid. The ink tablet, half covered with carved inscription, lies before me. I pull out the two white bone pieces latching the powder-blue silk covers of a small thick volume. The ivory-white rice paper page is blank. The moon has set over the western horizon and night fragrance is drifting into my window. I pick a brush of the needed thickness, touch the surface of water in a porcelain cup and caressing the ink tablet gently, write down a poem.