A moon gate in my wall: собрание стихотворений

Swathed in its lace of slime,
the pond sleeps
at sunset.

High above the adobe hut

and the boat landing
rises a sharp-horned yellow moon.

What a comforting and pleasing lot —

Who can say fate is unkind?
The delicate filigree of willow' leaves
is black against the violet evening sky.

559. «Early snow falls…»

Early snow falls,
like wafted cherry blossoms —
peaceful and lazy —
into the pond,

the green one, where willows drop

and late water lilies are blooming.

There could not be a brighter or a larger star

than the one climbing
the partly darkening sky, and
hesitating over the edge
of the pensive village.

560. «San Shu was a boatman. He lived on an island…»

San Shu was a boatman. He lived on an island
in the middle of the great Sung-Hwa river,
in the north.
He rowed his flat-bottomed boat
very skillfully across the wide yellow grey expanse
from the shore of the city to the grassy flatlands
on the other side,
where lay the villages and the farms.

The Sung-Hwa was a pleasant sunny stream

and it earned the boatman's bread
all summer.

561. «From the direction of Mai Mai Cheng…» [251]

From the direction of Mai Mai Cheng,
rising over the Gobi desert,
across the Great Wall,
came a wind.

It picked up the sands of the desert

and became thick and brown
as the sands themselves,
as it hurled its destructive phalanges
into battle,
row upon powerful row.

I got up in the morning with a brown blanket about me

brown sand in my eyes and ears
and gritting between my teeth
and but a white spot on the bed
where my head had rested.

But many centuries this Gobi wind has blown

covering with its sands
myriad human bones and ancient dwellings.

Some far-off day a child,

playing in the swift sand,
will take a beautiful polished white bone
that will have been me,

and will take it to her father,

to make her a flute,
to sing a song.

Часть IV. Неопубликованные переводы

English into Russian

562. Maxwell Bodenheim (1893–1954). A Poet to his Love [252]

Серебряная церковь в чаше леса —
Моя любовь к тебе. Кругом деревья,
Украденные от тебя слова
И колокол, твоя последняя улыбка.
Дарованная мне, — повешен наверху.
Тот колокол звонит, когда ты входишь в лес.
Когда ты станешь около него.
Но звон его ненужный замолкает,
Когда ты начинаешь говорить.

28 ноября [1924 г.]

563. Abbie Huston Evans. A Niche from the Blast. Dell Concert. [253]