A day passed.
September passed.
Everything has
passed.
That time has
come.
Come, then,
weeping grey
bushes of acacia,
rosehip, lilac
and deadly
nightshade.
Late at night
I walk alone,
an umbrella
tiredly raised
against the wet
rain
to the doorway
with the broken
elevator,
to stairs that
smell like stray
dogs and sad
dog sleep
that disappear
into the attic—
Slowly
I turn the key,
unlock the door.
Who waits for
me at night?
What large
shadow of fate?
There’s only that
first November
that stepped out into deserted sidewalks,
kissed the chests
of trees. My friend
was far away
then—but he felt my sorrows
at a distance of
two overnight trains, he
faithfully wrote
letters and turned
to the garden to
cool his face
in the rain, and,
too, grasped some leaves,
kissed the chests
of trees.
An uncertain knock
startled me at
midnight.
Opening my
eyes, I see how light drizzles
from my elbow’s
veins, falls soundless
and floats
past.
And I dream:
I’ll inevitably
choke on light there—
barely turning
my head in sleep.
of acacia, rosehip, lilac and deadly
nightshade—an autumn rain,
a late-autumn night. It’s that time
when they accompany me,
when the veins in my elbows
open up soundlessly in heavy rain
and light floats past.
November—
at a distance of two overnight trains,
a far-off friend—uncertain knock—slowly
turning the key on the stairs
I choke…
In half-sleep I dream:
it’s that time. Who waits for me at night,
what large shadow of what fate?
Was it really
then, when—you loved?—
in childhood,
cutting your finger on yellow glass,
watching the
tender blood tremble.
It was red like
rain you lost,
the red dew,
the glass glowing in the sun.
The whole world
lies in yellow glass.
The bandage
darkens and dries.
Was it then
that the eagerness to heal pain
with a game
took shape? A game
of rays on the
glass—above all!
From finger to
veins opened in anguish!
Yes, music,
above all! O, friends,
and poetry,
above all…
The shadow
speaks to me
the holy untruth
in others’
lips… And beyond the broken glass—
the gentle
voice—your elbows bandaged,
and your mouth,
like a bandage, its dark edges.
Let’s walk
among the bloody bandages,
among the faint
sounds of moonlight,
let’s go where
the luminous skulls
lie in fields
beneath the black earth,
let’s go where
translucent newborns
rock in the
spider webs of dreams.
Let’s go and take with us
acacia, rosehips, the motherland,
the house and
the dog— first,
second,
third—and fourth leaf falls
caught up in a whirlwind
and the first snow…
Take me by the hand
in a black
mitten—an attribute of
romance,
poetry, and jazz—
irregular
rhythm, minor,
sleepwalking
jazz, the last rain
and the first
snow.
...Just like in a dream
no longer
walking, let’s fly through the night,
choking, our
faces beneath the snow
flowing from
our soundless elbows.
This weakness,
this wetness, this return
falls gently to
the dark earth; it’ll cry
in the sockets
of illuminated skulls,
in their
mothers’ wombs—children,
yet unborn,
will be rocked
by water.
Water instead
of earth and light instead of
air—snow
intoxicates like chloroform—
the pistil
emerges from water and light,
pulsing,
powerful, resilient forms.
Water and
light—the first principle!
Love and
pain—the law of poetry!
And the wet
blood of the illuminated word
I lap with my parched
tongue!
A pulsing,
powerful, elastic rhythm
swells
discreetly, the life-giving water
will wash the
veins of thick bark with the first snow;
the freakish
shadow will return to the book
and remove its
mittens at the black font—
and again the
end will repeat back
to the
beginning.
This is how November will end.
