The smokey blotches of the neighbours’ windows,
and windswept roses bending, drawing breath –
if I could think that life is but a dream,
that we cannot help waking after death.
To wait in heaven – heaven is so blue –
to wait in that cool bliss without a care.
And then, never to part with you.
With you for ever. Do you see? For ever…
by Георгий Владимирович Иванов (Georgii Vladimirovich Ivanov)
(1958)
translated by Boris Dralyuk