A moon gate in my wall: собрание стихотворений

I am Lot's wife. I couldn't walk away
up foreign sands, away from that poor land
where every stone was warm from my own touch
and every door and window held my shadow,
where I had walked those narrow streets of Sodom.

There I had lived among familiar people

and talked and had my various human dealings
with neighbor women and with men who traded
and knew me well and knew my husband Lot.

Though truly they had differed with our thoughts

and knew not God as Lot and I had known Him
and wouldn't listen to His words of warnings,
— they weren't worse than I: I didn't listen.

I couldn't follow Lot on that safe trail

hearing the wrath of vengeance on my town,
hearing the fall of rocks and quake of hillside,
hearing the roar of all-devouring flame,
the crying agony of men and women:
I couldn't run away: I stopped and turned —

What matter that the price I paid was life,

was immortality?
Perhaps in that brief moment
some friend or enemy before he died
breathed easier because he glimpsed, half-blinded,
through fire and smoke, beneath a fallen pillar,
my shaking arms stretched in a last farewell?

1958

534. «Come to classroom, padre, while the students…»