Сочинения Иосифа Бродского. Том IV

Since mistakes are inevitable, I can easily be taken
for a man standing before you in this room filled
with yourselves. Yet in about one hour
this will be corrected, at your and at my expense,
and the place will be reclaimed by elemental particles
free from the rigidity of a particular human shape
or type of assembly. Some particles are still free. It’s not all dust.

So my unwillingness to admit it’s I

facing you now, or the other way around,
has less to do with my modesty or solipsism
than with my respect for the premises’ instant future,
for those aforementioned free-floating particles
settling upon the shining surface
of my brain. Inaccessible to a wet cloth eager to wipe them off.

The most interesting thing about emptiness

is that it is preceded by fullness.
The first to understand this were, I believe, the Greek
gods, whose forte indeed was absence.
Regard, then, yourselves as rehearsing perhaps for the divine encore,
with me playing obviously to the gallery.
We all act out of vanity. But I am in a hurry.

Once you know the future, you can make it come

earlier. The way it’s done by statues or by one’s furniture.
Self-effacement is not a virtue
but a necessity, recognized most often
toward evening. Though numerically it is easier
not to be me than not to be you. As the swan confessed
to the lake: I don’t like myself. But you are welcome to my reflection.

1994

A POSTCARD

The country is so populous that polygamists and serial
killers get off scot-free and airplane crashes
are reported (usually on the evening news) only when they occur
in a wooded area — the difficulty of access
is most grievous if it’s tinged with feelings for the environment.
Theaters are packed, both stalls and stage.
An aria is never sung by a single tenor:
normally they use six at once, or one that’s as fat as six.
And the same goes for the government, whose offices stay lit up
through the night, working in shifts, like factories,
hostage to the census. Everything is pandemic.
What is loved by one is loved by many,
be it an athlete, a perfume, or bouillabaisse.
Therefore, no matter what you say or do is loyal.
Nature too seems to have taken note of the common denominator,
and whenever it rains, which is seldom, clouds linger longest over
not the army and navy stadium but the cemetery.

1994

TO MY DAUGHTER