By Robert Rozhdestvensky
So it was.
Moon with its unclear paints
had coloured the roadsides...
We were burned out!
We seemed to be thrown at midnight
from the train.
And waist-deep -
to the cold snow in a ditch.
With snow-piles - the half-world is covered!..
But the train - is passing by quickly...
Passing by quickly...
Passing by quickly...
Stop!
Was there only a minute before
we were riding it and laughing there?
With its closeness
and sudden sadness
we used to be.
We were fools!
And dug the alien problems and woes
fearlessly.
We were just our-selves.
But today we are - not selves.
Today - on recollecting the selves,
we are mute and stunned.
You think me to be unknown,
distant,
hardly featured...
The empty midnight.
All my palms are in the burns of blizzard's smoke.
And train
is passing by quickly,
is passing by quickly,
is passing by quickly...
Is flying - as a shell!
And is pulling with it not our offences,
not our grieves and joys -
somewhere.
But you are - near.
How could I knock to?
How could I stretch to?
How could I cry to you?
Under the great snow-cover
above the thousand-mile time
there are hanging
the silent
cries,
fastened to stars.
I can't get rid them of
alll the past days,
of all the past moments...
And memory
is passing by quickly,
is passing by quickly,
is passing by quickly...