Книга жалоб – в каждом магазине… (Every Store…) by Yevgeny Vinokurov

Every store keeps a book for complaints
And, if you ask for it, they have to give it to you!
It wouldn’t be a bad idea, I think,
If eternity had a book like that.
Then people wouldn’t have to keep silent about their sorrow.
…Timidly, cautious at first, they would all come, bringing
The griefs they endure, the wrongs they are made to suffer
To universal attention and judgement.
How we should then be struck, I know,
By one entry of half a line
written
By that woman who, slumped against its railings,
Was crying in the park last night…

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by Евгений Михайлович Винокуров (Yevgeny Mikhailovich Vinokurov)
(1961)
Translated by Albert C. Todd

Additional information: He served in the artillery during the Second World War, studied at the Gorky Literary Institute and published his first poems in 1948. As co-editor of the poetry section of the journal Октябрь (October) he published Boris Slutsky, Nikolai Zabolotsky and the young Bella Akhmadulina amongst many others.

Beneath is the original Russian version of the poem in Cyrillic.

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Книга жалоб – в каждом магазине…

Книга жалоб – в каждом магазине,
Требуйте её, – должны подать!..

Предлагаю вечности: отныне
Завести подобную тетрадь,

Чтоб о боли люди не молчали,
И тогда-то на вселенский суд
Все свои обиды и печали
Люди осторожно понесут…

Как тогда б, я знаю, поразила
Надпись в полстроки из-под пера
Женщины, что павши на перила,
Ночью в парке плакала вчера.

1961

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Rain by Winifred Grace Turner

It rained last night, what a lovely sound,

With kisses so welcome, it softened the ground.

A raindrop sparkles on a leaf by my door

Iridescent and trembling waiting for more.

A spiders web shimmers, gossamer lace.

With fairy like fingers it caresses my face.

A snail leaves a trail as it moves slowly along

The rain freshened air fills with the birds lovely song.

The world is awakening, the sun will arise

Flame coloured banners will colour the skies,

New buds will open and flowers bloom again

Welcoming new life, brought by Gods blessing of rain.

.

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By Winifred Grace Turner

A Carol for the Coalfields by Idris Davies

From the moors of Blaen Rhymni down to the leaning wall

Of Caerphilly Castle you shall hear the same accents

Of sorrow and mirth and pride, and a vague belief

That the future shall be greater than the past.

 

The man in the Rhondda Valley and the man in Abertillery

Have shared the same years, the same days of hope and desolation,

And in Ogmore Vale and in Ammanford both old and young dream

That the future shall be greater than the past.

 

On the ragged hills and by the shallow polluted rivers,

The pious young man and the old rascal of many sins,

The idealists and the wasters, all sometimes believe and say

That the future shall be greater than the past.

 

Mothers praying for sons away in the wars, and mothers waiting

On doorsteps and by firesides for men coming home from the pits,

And the old folks bent and scarred with years of toil, all sometimes hope

That the future shall be greater than the past.

 

Last night the moon was full above the slag heaps and the grave-yards

And the towns amongst the hills, and a man arose from his dream

And cried out: Let this day be sufficient, and worthy of my people

And let the night winds go on wailing of the future and the past.

 

by Idris Davies