Tomas Venclova

Not the sea, but sultry mists, concrete slabs
and discarded rails, pierced by the sunset's sooty carmine
which, from time to time, streaks the sky. Curtained with
fetid algae, the breakwater protrudes - a refuge for seagulls.
Where the sand and strait converge, a figure waits for the crimson
to fade on the far side of the many-masted disorder
and to return home, when the moment comes. But, where is home?
Here, or on the ocean's far shore? In the mountains, where avalanches
have sheared off the slopes? Under back-road firs,
where one can glimpse old cellars' depths? ln the ageing body,
which refuses to submit? Or perhaps in the uncertainty
that you have lived? The certainty you will disappear? In this
place poisoned by rust -
or again, in the gaze that can stiH here divine
the symmetry, harmony and measure it manages to find?

When into a canal's depth, choked
with duckweed, a bell's stroke falls
without echo: eyes closed, a stork
exercises its wings in unclear skies.
It listens to how the damp descends
from fern onto a violet's wick; how
the light, resembling night, glistens
on the landscape seen upside down.

A stain at the centre of the continent.
Beech and chestnut are in league here,
so you might not see the arrow's point
Actaeon aims at the spine of the boar.
The footpath, pale with dusty silver,
will not recognise the goddess's retinue.
A dragonfly will not disturb the hour.
The zodiac isn't born in the crepuscule.

The oars fall silent. The heart lets off -
while the clouds that flood the ford,
divide like the nature of being itself:
made up of non-being and the Word.

From the highway, down to the meadow
led the path. In the ravine, you watched
the sunset brush up against wires, fade.
The State's mark crowned the signpost
and bittercress stems scratched cement.

A country, long-suffering and patient,
lay to the north-east welcoming night.
A doe nibbled brushwood and alder.
Beyond the horizon, you could almost
see a distant lake. In its clouded surface
was the indistinct reflection of a child
whose outline matched yours. Above,
a song hovered over the bridge and
rushes, on mossy tombstones' dates.
Time that escapes biographers and
memory is perhaps the most important:
both a heavy burden and a talisman.

To the left stretched the wild wood.
In it, a bright opening - a gap which
revealed a marsh, or simply mud or silt.
There, unseen, swarmed the grinning,
unkempt offspring of absurd designs
and schemes. ln the distance ruined
bridges and glades showed black. Icy
canals took aim at the cold fringes
of the bay, but failed to hit the city
or the fleet. You know that children
there are born into side streets sharing
rage, cigarette butts, sperm, syringes.

Whitish chimney smoke behind you,
and growling dogs that keep guard
against unwelcome guests. lt's late.
lmpassable dirt roads wind round
past hollows and debris. Unplastered
brick walls conceal the fires. I guess
if fate has brought you here, you should
accept this territory at the threshold
of home. This triple-junction strewn
with rigid signposts - now outdated,
but one time deadly. The viaduct's
grim arch spans neglected grounds.

Touch the cold grass of childhood.
You are home. Night's shell enfolds
the three-fold sea. lt's all a gift of grace:
thcse muddled times, the sentry no longer
on guard, the air that's longing for a voice.

Under an uproar of lindens, before the stone
embankment, by a fast current like the Tiber,
I am drinking Gilbey's with two bearded men.
In the twilight - the jingle of glasses, smoke.
But we have never met. I knew their parents.

Generations overtake another. The tape-recorder
warbles and crackles. My two interlocutors
want to know about questions I once pondered:
whether there is meaning to suffering and mercy -
whether art can survive if it obeys no rules.

I was the same as them, but destiny accorded
me a strange fate: this, of course, is no better
than any other. I know evil never disappears,
but one can at least strive to dispel blindness -
and poetry is more meaningful than dreams.

In summertime, I often wake before dawn,
sensing, without fear, the time is drawing
dose when others will inherit the dictionary,
along with clouds, ruins, salt and bread.
And freedom is all that I will be granted.