September, I-III
To Yury Nagibin
I
What's an awful weather outdoors? However,
Of no matter such an incident -
In january I'm living as in september,
Persistently and frenzily.
September, don't draw your wing,
Your wing of yellow-orange colour,
And, please, postpone your last will,
Your last day - give me linger, rather.
Wait me a little, don't sleep,
All enveloped by the will of grantor,
And, as in past times, waste your riches,
Indulge all growing trees with bounty.
What it had been! How the grass had strained
In order to turn green with such completeness,
And a tree, as a copper pipe, had played,
Had shined above the ground withered.
To all front gardens, overfilled to edge,
The nature spended, wasted its resource,
And dahlia displayed its inflorescence
And stood still, waiting for next growth.
The crowd of the startled painters
Was looking furtively on the colour scene,
And crowded, and wiped its sweat
From foreheads, cried of being innocent.
Cried of not being organizer of commotion,
And that those red colours were not shed all by it,
And as a proof, the crowd showed
Its poor palette then to everybody.
No, you are surely not guilty. All the same
The boughs will change colours in the autumn,
But all this - that of yellow or red,
Or green - let live forever, though.
How that made dirty, how eyes were hitted,
How the former colouration was broken!
And in this rapture - all the market did
The prices on the apples lower...
II
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poem by Bella Akhmadulina, translated by Lyudmila Purgina
Added by Poetry Lover
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