Four Centuries, Russian Poetry in Translation, 25, 2020 pages 38-40
https://perelmuterverlag.de/onewebmedia/FC252020.pdf
Tatiana Vinogradova (1965) Татьяна Виноградова (1965) Translated into English by Anton Yakovlev © Tatiana Vinogradova, 2020, poem originals © Anton Yakovlev, translation, 2020
The Stone Tree
The stone tree
grows silently
in a city with no walls.
Black and white rain comes down
in a mirthless country.
Landscapes are vast/sad.
Rivers wait pensively.
The stone tree takes root
in my head,
rustles its brick foliage.
The stone tree
grows into others' dreams,
touches their thoughts with its branches.
I await this strange
fig tree's fruits.
I fear the stone tree,
it's too alive.
I watch the city.
Soon it will be a forest.
Heaven
… And in heaven we'll meet everyone we loved.
Even the cats.
And we will see everything we wanted to see
but didn't get around to in life.
Even God.
And there will also be flowers
never given to us by those
whom we so…
And they will also be there.
And we will have time for them all,
and they will have time for us,
because there's plenty of time in heaven – all of eternity.
And no one will ever be jealous,
and no one will fall into depression,
and no one will take their own death
or banish themselves from heaven
claiming they're fed up with playing the harp.
Because we all
Have nowhere
left
to go.
… And if anyone doesn't like the harp,
they will be given a drum set.
Because Lord's mercy knows no bounds.
* * *
For Svetlana Chernyshova
It's easy to write of the sea, of freedom, of dreams,
and – of course! – of the desperately dreamy seagulls
when you live in a snow-white seaside town
that knows no snow,
a town whose streets cheerfully gather
to the calls of Poseidons, Amphtrites, and Tritons,
and you – you wake up and fall asleep to the sound of surf
as salty clouds drift above.
No-o-o, try to write of freedom, the sea, and dreams
when you've lived all your life in a giant,
hopelessly dry and landlocked metropolis
where the rain smells of nothing but wet asphalt
and occasionally of freshly shaved lawns
and never of faraway strange lands.
Where there are no seagulls, only dirty proud pigeons,
where clouds are not salty but scorched,
in fact they're not even clouds but smog and smoke
from nearby forest fires.
Write about it, please!
Use your imagination, prove your professionalism!
Write of the doleful dolphins, of marmalade mermaids
(can't do without the mermaids) and other na;ve naiads.
Can't do it?
… But the best at writing about the sea, freedom, and dreams
will be the blind poet born in the desert
who's never even known the smell of wet asphalt.
He will write a new Odyssey.
Because the sea is inside.
Tatiana Vinogradova, poet, critic and graphic artist, was born in Moscow on Jan.15 1965. She graduated from the Journalist Department of Moscow State University in 1990. She took the post-graduate course and defended her Ph.D. thesis on Russian rock-poetry in 1997. She is a member of Moscow Writers Union (since 2002), International Federation of Artists, and Moscow Organization of Literary Persons. Her poems have been published in literary journals and anthologies in Russia as well as in other countries. The Last Poet of the Village, Anton Yakovlev's book of translations of poetry by Sergei Yesenin, was published by Sensitive Skin Books in 2019. His latest English-language poetry chapbook is Chronos Dines Alone (SurVision Books, 2018), winner of the James Tate Prize. He is also the author of Ordinary Impalers (Kelsay Books, 2017) and two prior chapbooks. His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The New Criterion, The Hopkins Review, Measure, Posit and elsewhere. Born in Moscow, Anton is a graduate of Harvard University and a former education director at Bowery Poetry Club in New York City.
https://perelmuterverlag.de/onewebmedia/FC252020.pdf