By Ludmila Simanionak
Translation: John Farndon, Jenya Mironava
***
Spring stripped the last shreds from the rubbish
While water washed the last silence away.
Your Paris then just did not exist,
Your Moscow was destroyed in a blaze.
Like a photo of paradise pinned
To the wall, a scrap of magazine.
The promise of the road without end
Is salvation from guilt and suffering.
There is no urgent need to move now—
Even song doesn’t soar to its goal:
In the Vilnius forest the wolf doesn’t howl
And the hejnal-trumpet is hushed in Krakow.
Trust yourself and confess to this,
For you knew it even in younger days:
Your Paris then just did not exist,
Your Moscow was destroyed in a blaze.
September 2018, Moscow
***
On the anniversary and without reason
On living grass the stone boots tread.
Monuments march on the city from the east —
To take the bridgehead in our head.
So that in a moment of fear, or despairing,
Before they began the official attack
They could, once again unwavering
Insidiously drive a knife in the back.
***
To Aleś Puškin
The asphalt buzzes with the daily traffic,
And trees get smashed waiting for their leaves.
An artist is painting recollections of Vitebsk –
That Vitebsk will someday come to be, I believe.
A woman will flick mascara from her eye,
And wink on life’s orbital highway.
And seeing the painter’s hat [1] pass by,
All the clocks‘ times will go astray [2]
And knock the record of the April reel:
Disenchantments, passions, pain and glory.
… Behind the blindness of doors of steel,
Is revealed an exhibition gallery.
April 1, 2019
[1] – The painter was known for his distinctive hats.
[2] – On April 1, 2019 when Aleś was doing an excursion around the Vitebsk of his youth, the clocks around the town hall plaza all showed different times, which happens very rarely
***
Allow me, too, a modicum of sorrow
To at least rebuke those times long ago:
Grandpa Lenin! Well, why didn’t you show
Say, five pieces of countries ‘tween Belarus and Moscow?!
23 February 2022