The antithesis of good and evil —
Like choosing between love and death.
Two sources, two knots drawn tight,
Two leaves inside a single envelope.
Somewhere water runs quietly,
Perhaps it is only the tap.
Or are you crying again? — Yes.
Hush now, darling, too soon for tears.
Two nests, two fires in the night —
The antithesis of winter and summer.
If you want, then come to know me,
All the details, all the secrets.
We begin from far away,
Carefully walking along the edge.
I do not yet know how to live —
It will all come right. I know it will.
Two preludes, two destinies:
Are you waiting for joy or grief?
Like hostages, like slaves we live
Inside two stories already written.
Two universes — you and I —
Truth and dream, farewells and meetings.
From flight itself to emptiness.
Put your arms around my shoulders,
Pass your hand across my eyes,
Touch my lips with your own lips,
So that stillness may turn fierce —
Quiet, tender, burning, rough.
And suddenly the circle closes,
Tied into a single knot.
Two breaths, two pairs of hands —
Simply a woman and a man.
* * *
Again at the window something knocks —
Rain or snow,
But on the needles, all the same:
Loops, more loops.
Hour by hour and day by day
We draw out yarn,
And still we wait for something else,
Knitting weekdays.
Again a stitch has slipped away —
Begin anew.
A senseless day, a life from scratch —
Still never enough.
Behind the flicker of two needles
Over tangled balls,
A saddened sigh, a sweep of lashes,
A helpless gesture.
Outside the window life flies past,
Like a tale.
We have, of course, what we desired —
A self-knit fate.
* * *
The slanting eyes of Japan
Look at us, grave and wise,
Like cherry blossom at daybreak,
But how to know what you did not say?
Only moon-shadow on the tips of lashes,
And gold scattered into glints,
And lips with the taste of ripe strawberries
In the flutter of mysterious pages.
They speak by halves; I overflow,
So boundlessly much, so bottomless.
A shoulder has frozen like a marble column.
Is this autumn, or is it May?
You give me a hint; I fling myself down,
My kimono spread to the wind like wings,
Imagining suffering in abundance
In a poem with a view of the cornice.
The smallest step of my Japanese feet,
A tornado of words knocking me down;
From satisfaction or euthanasia
Hidden in a secret corner.
I wait for you in a foretaste of fire,
In the breath of burning sandalwood.
I have told you so much about love
That you will not be able to forget me.
* * *
Pea soup on the stove
Softly breathes its heat.
We are all kin in Christ
In this large old house.
The dim light of the warm room,
Laughter beyond my wall,
And onto a heap of old newspapers
I sweep the shards of a saucer.
For luck I smash them on the floor —
But where is it, this luck?
The old table grins at me,
Watching my misfortunes.
Quietly crying over fragments
Sacrificed to omens,
I cannot decide what I shall serve
The pea soup and cutlets in.
I’ll sit down silently on a stool,
My chin propped in my hand,
And now there are no dishes left,
And they have started crying behind the wall.
King Pea — a pea-green fool,
And words like peas against a wall.
I’ll cry a minute here,
Then thread my needle.
And string the peas one after one
To make myself a necklace,
And neatly place upon the shelves
The shards of broken Gzhel.
The room will grow hotter;
The soup on the stove moans softly.
Perhaps I’ll cradle on my shoulder
The palms of your hands?
* * *
Different versions of life’s events
Belong to pedestrians and drivers,
To the growing young and to parents,
To sellers and to buyers.
Different degrees of perception
Belong to enemies and friends,
To spectators and sculptors,
To tax offices and entrepreneurs.
Different causes and effects
Appear to women and to men,
Different roles, plots, masks —
Kitchen and bed, husband and rank.
A different threshold for impossible pain,
The kind that fate sometimes gives,
If it is with you constantly:
A choice between a loop and a noose.
* * *
A hundred thousand days
With my longing,
A hundred thousand suns and moons
By ancient stumps,
In captivity of shadows,
My sorcerer casts his spell.
In a great cauldron
Jelly boils
From fragrant herbs.
In the sinister dark,
Face to the earth,
His haughty temper bends.
A burning eye,
A chanting tale,
And against my will,
Seventeen times
Far from us
Little fires flashed.
Seventeen times
He fell into ecstasy,
And my sorcerer cried out.
The fire went out,
And that hour became
The beginning of beginnings.
Under rustling leaves,
Under an owl’s cry,
He kindled fire in me.
Alas, from that grass
They wove for me
My virginal wreath.
It sings within me —
A soul on fire:
Thank you, my sorcerer!
In a beautiful dream
There will flash at the window
The fire of a hundred thousand moons.
