Nightride by Gillian Clarke

The road unwinding under our wheels

New in the headlamps like a roll of foil.

The rain is a recorder writing tunes

In telegraph wires, kerbs and cats’ eyes,

Reflections and the lights of little towns.

 

He turns his head to look at me.

“Why are you quiet?” Shiny road rhythm,

Rain rhythm, beat of the windscreen wipers,

I push my knee against his in the warmth

And the car thrusts the dark and rain away.

 

The child sleeps, and I reflect, as I breathe

His brown hair, and watch the apple they gave him

Held in his hot hands, that a tree must ache

With the sweet weight of the round rosy fruit,

As I with Dylan’s head, nodding on its stalk.

 

by Gillian Clarke

from The Sundial, Gwasg Gomer, 1978)

Шепот, робкое дыханье (Whispers) by Afanasy Fet

Whispers, timid breathing,

trills of a nightingale,

the silver and the shiver

of a sleepy rill.

 

Pale light and nighttime shadows,

shadows without end,

all the magic transformations

of eyes and lips and brows.

 

In smoky clouds, a rose’s purple,

the shine of amber beads,

and the kisses, and the tears,

and the dawn, the dawn!

 

by Афанасий Афанасьевич Фет (Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet)

a.k.a. Шеншин (Shenshin)

(1850)

translated by Boris Dralyuk