‘Услышишь гром и вспомнишь обо мне’ a.k.a. ‘You will hear thunder and remember me’ by Anna Akhmatova

You will hear thunder and remember me,
And think: she wanted storms. The rim
Of the sky will be the colour of hard crimson,
And your heart, as it was then, will be on fire.
 
That day in Moscow, it will all come true,
When, for the last time, I take my leave,
And hasten to the heights that I have longed for,
Leaving my shadow still to be with you.
 

by Анна Ахматова (Anna Akhmatova)
(1961 - 1963)
from Седьмая книга (The Seventh Book)
translation by D. M. Thomas

Below is the original Russian version in cyrillic.

Услышишь гром и вспомнишь обо мне,
Подумаешь: она грозы желала...
Полоска неба будет твердо-алой,
А сердце будет как тогда - в огне.
Случится это в тот московский день,
Когда я город навсегда покину
И устремлюсь к желанному притину, 
Свою меж вас еще оставив тень. 

The Fisherman by R. S. Thomas

A simple man,
He liked the crease on the water
His cast made, but had no pity
For the broken backbone
Of water or fish.

One of his pleasures, thirsty,
Was to ask a drink
At the hot farms;
Leaving with a casual thank you,
As though they owed it him.

I could have told of the living water
That springs pure.
He would have smiled then,
Dancing his speckled fly in the shallows,
Not understanding.

by R. S. Thomas
from Not That He Brought Flowers (1968)

Birth by Gillian Clarke

On the hottest, stillest day of the summer

A calf was born in a field

At Pant-y-Cetris; two buzzards

Measured the volume of the sky;

The hills brimmed with incoming

Night. In the long grass we could see

The cow, her sides heaving, a focus

Of restlessness in the complete calm,

Her calling at odds with silence.

 

The light flowed out leaving stars

And clarity. Hot and slippery, the scalding

Baby came, and the cow stood up, her cool

Flanks like white flowers in the dark.

We waited while the calf struggled

To stand, moved as though this

Were the first time. I could feel the soft sucking

Of the new-born, the tugging pleasure

Of bruised reordering, the signal

Of milk’s incoming tide, and satisfaction

Fall like a clean sheet around us.

 

by Gillian Clarke

from The Sundial (Gwasg Gomer, 1978)

The Empty Church by R. S. Thomas

They laid this stone trap

for him, enticing him with candles,

as though he would come like some huge moth

out of the darkness to beat there.

Ah, he had burned himself

before in the human flame

and escaped, leaving the reason

torn. He will not come any more

 

to our lure. Why, then, do I kneel still

striking my prayers on a stone

heart? Is it in hope one

of them will ignite yet and throw

on its illuminated walls the shadow

of someone greater than I can understand?

 

by R. S. Thomas

from Frequencies (1978)

‘There Is Deep Meaning In A Parting’ by Fyodor Tyutchev

There is deep meaning in a parting:

fleeting love, eternal love –

love’s but a dream, a dream’s but a moment…

Today, tomorrow – awakening is imminent.

And you wake up, at last.

 

by Фёдор Иванович Тютчев (Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev)

(1851)

translated by Irina Mashinski

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Fun Fact: Counted amongst the admirers of Tyutchev‘s works were Dostoevsky and Tolstoy along with Nekrasov and Fet then later Osip Mandelstam who, in a passage approved by Shalamov, believed that a Russian poet should not have copy of Tyutchev in his personal library – he should know all of Tyutchev off by heart.