Sestina
The curtain rose. The stage
was showing a crowded medieval city
of grayish stony buildings, and shadows
of centuries. The opera
was old and lame, and the actors’ faces
were tired and boring. Her contralto,
however, wasn’t a usual contralto;
it was too good for the shaky wooden stage,
when its deep velvet touch reached the faces
of the public—the masks of the city.
Compared with this voice, the opera
Seemed to be a chaotic carnival of pale shadows.
On the dusty walls huge mystic shadows
were dancing, accompanied by her contralto,
and it seemed that the opera
left the human stage
and lived in its own city
of images on the wall… Among hundreds of faces
I saw a papery-wrinkled face,
dark in the deep shadows
of marble columns. In the whole city
there were thousands of faces like this. The contralto
stoned the old woman. She stared at the stage,
strained and awed by the opera
and the wonderful voice. The opera
was reflected in hundreds of ways on the faces
and in the eyes. But the action on the stage
made the old woman’s face different—seen even in the shadows
covering her. The magic contralto
seemed to be her singing heart. “This city
is large”, I thought, “a large noisy city…”
And somehow, listening to this ancient opera
made me think of hidden ties between the contralto
and the old woman. Among faceless faces
under indifferent snobby shadows—
those eyes were alive on the stage.
The stage, full of ancient dusty shadows,
was a collision of voiceless faces and this heavenly contralto.
Opera was popular in the city.
20.03.1999