I began to grow old
when I turned forty-four,
and at the eating place on the corner,
I was already taken
for a lonely retiree,
forgotten
by every soul
on earth,
forsaken by his children
and ignored by the rest of his kin.
Well, this is the law of life, isn’t it?
Yet I confess
that at first,
Whenever I entered the place
and looked around
for a vacant table,
this circumstance depressed me.
But later
I found in it
the emergency exit in the building called life.
Yes, I submerged
into the muffled hubbub of voices
of that place
in almost a cellar,
where my ailing spirit
was strangely healed,
as I carried a pea soup
on a quavering piece of plastic,
a spoon, a fork and a knife,
still dripping,
and a hunk of bread on a plate –
also wet.
I came to love
those
crudely panelled
walls,
that line to the counter,
the trays
and the meagre menu card.
‘Blessed are,’
I muttered,
‘Blessed are,
Blessed are,
Blessed are…’
That blessed squalor
I shall never betray.
I came to love
the defeat at the game of life,
and the faded traces
of decorations
on old uniforms
and I could now enter
the world of shadows just like another shadow,
without farewell salvos,
solemn faces,
or fuss.
by Александр Петрович Межиров (Alexander Petrovich Mezhirov)
a.k.a. Alexandre Petrovitch Mejirov
(1973)
translated by Lev Navrozov
Rambling At The Bridge Head 