The Hills
In memory of two my favourite teachers —
Lydia A. Selizhcheva & Olga A. Sotnikova
I recall a sad morning
at the end of the Fall,
and a road that steeply
climbed into the hills.
It was a time when all roads
wherever they went
were joyless. From autumnal earth
wafted an anxious scent.
And a presentiment
of sorrow came from those
light-grey panoramas
opened by the hills.
A timid rain began to
fall, but then asked pardon,
was lost, while withered leaves
were burning in gardens.
Oh, how sombre are the wise
and how sad the living,
when they see that smoke rise
on a cloudy morning!
There are winds amid winds
that as they swirl
behave as if a draught’s blowing
into a split between worlds.
And that is how that wind was,
carrying away all trace
of smoke, whose dotted line marked
a path towards other places.
Tearing away to the basis,
it vanished, that dotted line,
but remained as a chill
running along the spine.
--George Yaropolsky
translated by D.M.Thomas
Оригинал: http://stihi.ru/2010/09/07/7190