Observation Post: Forward Area by Alun Lewis

The thorns are bleached and brittle,
The empty folds decay,
Rooftrees creak in the silence
Of inarticulate dismay.

Drought denudes the planting;
In the dry red heat
Dawn spills its ghostly water,
Black heads on the wheat.

Some evil presence quenches
The vagrant drunken theme
Of the swart and skinny goatherd
And the black goats of his dream.

A darker beast than poverty
Transfixed the crouching peasants there,
And tore the votive tablets down
And filled the children with such fear.

The cowdung fires guttered out,
The wizened women cried,
The bridegroom lay trembling,
And rigid the bride.

Love could be had for nothing.
And where is love now?
Gone with the shambling oxen,
Gone with the broken plough,
Death lives here now.

by Alun Lewis

Измена (Infidelity) by Olga Berggolts

Not waking, in my dreams, my dreams,
I saw you – you were alive.
You had endured all and come to me,
crossing the last frontier.

You were earth already, ashes, you
were my glory, my punishment.
But, in spite of life,
of death,
you rose from your thousand
graves.

You passed through war hell, concentration camp,
through furnace, drunk with the flames,
through your own death you entered Leningrad,
came out of love for me.

You found my house, but I live now
not in our house, in another;
and a new husband shares my waking hours…
O how could you not have known?!

Like the master of the house, proudly you crossed
the threshold, stood there lovingly.
And I murmured: ‘God will rise again’,
and made the sign of the cross
over you – the unbeliever’s cross, the cross
of despair, as black as pitch,
the cross that was made over each house
that winter, that winter in which

you died.
O my friend, forgive me
as I sigh. How long have I not known
where waking ends and the dream begins…

by Ольга Фёдоровна Берггольц (Olga Fyodorovna Berggolts)
a.k.a. Olga Fyodorovna Bergholz
(1946)
translated by Daniel Weissbort

Recited by Veronika Nesterov with some additional music

Измена

Не наяву, но во сне, во сне
я увидала тебя: ты жив.
Ты вынес все и пришел ко мне,
пересек последние рубежи.

Ты был землею уже, золой,
славой и казнью моею был.
Но, смерти назло
и жизни назло,
ты встал из тысяч
своих могил.

Ты шел сквозь битвы, Майданек, ад,
сквозь печи, пьяные от огня,
сквозь смерть свою ты шел в Ленинград,
дошел, потому что любил меня.

Ты дом нашел мой, а я живу
не в нашем доме теперь, в другом,
и новый муж у меня — наяву…
О, как ты не догадался о нем?!

Хозяином переступил порог,
гордым и радостным встал, любя.
А я бормочу: «Да воскреснет бог»,
а я закрещиваю тебя
крестом неверующих, крестом
отчаянья, где не видать ни зги,
которым закрещен был каждый дом
в ту зиму, в ту зиму, как ты погиб…

О друг,— прости мне невольный стон:
давно не знаю, где явь, где сон …

На берегу (On the Bank) by Arseny Tarkovsky

He was sitting by the river, among reeds

that peasants had been scything for their thatch.

And it was quiet there, and in his soul

it was quieter and stiller still.

He kicked off his boots and put

his feet into the water, and the water

began talking to him, not knowing

he didn't know its language.

He had thought that water is deaf-mute,

that the home of sleepy fish is without words,

that blue dragonflies hover over water

and catch mosquitoes or horseflies,

that you wash if you want to wash, and drink

if you want to drink, and that's all there is

to water. But in all truth

the water's language was a wonder,

a story of some kind about some thing,

some unchanging thing that seemed

like starlight, like the swift flash of mica,

like a divination of disaster.

And in it was something from childhood,

from not being used to counting life in years,

from what is nameless

and comes at night before you dream,

from the terrible, vegetable

sense of self

of your first season.


That's how the water was that day,

and its speech was without rhyme or reason.


by Арсений Александрович Тарковский
(Arseny Alexandrovich Tarkovsky)
(1954)
translated by Robert Chandler

Arseny was the father of the famous and highly influential film director Andrei Tarkovsky. His poetry was often quoted in his son’s films.

Beneath is the original version of the poem.

На берегу

Он у реки сидел на камыше, 
Накошенном крестьянами на крыши, 
И тихо было там, а на душе 
Еще того спокойнее и тише. 
И сапоги он скинул. И когда 
Он в воду ноги опустил, вода 
Заговорила с ним, не понимая, 
Что он не знает языка ее. 
Он думал, что вода - глухонемая 
И бессловесно сонных рыб жилье, 
Что реют над водою коромысла 
И ловят комаров или слепней, 
Что хочешь мыться - мойся, хочешь - 
     пей, 
И что в воде другого нету смысла.

И вправду чуден был язык воды, 
Рассказ какой-то про одно и то же, 
На свет звезды, на беглый блеск слюды, 
На предсказание беды похожий. 
И что-то было в ней от детских лет, 
От непривычки мерить жизнь годами, 
И от того, чему названья нет, 
Что по ночам приходит перед снами, 
От грозного, как в ранние года, 
Растительного самоощущенья.

Вот какова была в тот день вода 
И речь ее - без смысла и значенья. 

Baratynsky by Varlam Shalamov

	Three Robinson Crusoes
in an abandoned shack,
we found a real find -
a single, battered book.
 
We three were friends
and we quickly agreed
to share out this treasure
as Solomon decreed.
 
The foreword for cigarette paper:
one friend was delighted
with a gift so unlikely
he feared he was dreaming.
 
The second made playing cards
from the notes at the back.
May his play bring him pleasure,
every page bring him luck.
 
As for my own cut -
those precious jottings,
the dreams of a poet
now long forgotten -
 
it was all that I wanted.
How wisely we'd judged.
What a joy to set foot in
a forgotten hut.
 
by Варлам Тихонович Шаламов (Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov)
(1949)
translated by Robert Chandler

Additional Information: The poem refers to Yevgeny Abramovich Baratynsky (Евге́ний Абра́мович Бараты́нский ) who was lauded by Alexander Pushkin as the finest Russian elegiac poet. After a long period, where his reputation was on the wane, Baratynsky was rediscovered by the Russian Symbolism poets as a supreme poet of thought.

‘It’s time my friends, it’s time. We long for peace’ by Alexander Pushkin

It’s time my friends, it’s time. We long for peace

of heart. But days chase days and every hour

gone by means one less hour to come. We live

our lives, dear friend, in hope of life, then die.

There is no happiness on earth, but peace

exists, and freedom too. Tired slave, I dream

of flight, of taking refuge in some far-

off home of quiet joys and honest labour.

 

by Александр Сергеевич Пушкин (Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin)

a.k.a. Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin

(1834)

translated by Robert Chandler