A moon gate in my wall: собрание стихотворений

I hope from where you sit or lie
that you can see a patch of sky
at night, with angels flitting by,
each lighter than a sigh.

I hope that thru your window pane

you see trees, dripping in the rain,
or stooping low as under strain
where heavy snow has lain.

That you can watch a billowy cloud

sailing, like some white galleon proud,
and birds around it, crying loud,
ever a joyous crowd;

I hope that you may never tire

of watching sunlit skies on fire.

27 Nov. 1951

523 Nocturne(«White clouds…») [235]

White clouds
Remote
Like little explosions
Climb the sky and float
Above the black erosions
Of the castle moat.

Behind the grey parallelogram

Of his castle wall
The aged knight
Snores, for he doesn't really give a damn
At all
For the beauty of the night.

But in her tower

The knight's young daughter
Forgetful of the hour,
Silently watches
The silver splotches
Upon the water.

29 Mar. 1955

524. Impressions at the Opera (a true story)

Three dowagers with silver tresses
and silver foxes over pale-blue dresses
floated into their box,
fox after fox,
and settled down,
like pillows stuffed with eiderdown.

And Salvatore Baccaloni,

as Bartolo up on the stage,
though usually quite the rage,
seemed not as fat,
nor half as funny.

21 Feb. 1956

525. «It is usually very still on that day…»

It is usually very still on that day,
which comes at different times in different places;
came in the end of October in the place where I lived.

Very still and cold, and then, toward evening,

the air is suddenly warmer.
Nature stands still, you can hear the earth breathe,
the trees reach out and wait.
Stars that had been very brilliant
all at once turn opaque.

It is then that the first snowflake of the winter, always

large and slow, is wafted, like a small parachute, down
upon the expectant earth,
in hushed silence.

27 Feb. 1956

526. «With folded wings he sat and took a rest…»

With folded wings he sat and took a rest
upon a branch not far from where his nest
was hidden in the thicket from sharp eyes
and sharper claw and long,
deep in a wood of aspen and of beech
where sunrays rarely reach,
where stillness lies
and shadows hang.
Quietly he sat, small, gray and soft,
colorless lump of life, alone, aloft,
seen and admired by no one.
Then he spread
his wings,
most powerful among such minute things,
and, gray no more
but golden in the sun, he rose to soar,
and then he sang…

February 1956

527. «Nothing is left to write of any more…» [236]