To realms of love we are delusive comets
Locked out of the trusted orbits' path.
The truth of dreams escapes the earthly wrath,
The voices of the suns of midnight call us.
Evaded holy bath in Lethe's cold course,
Our spirit's poisoned, recollections tough,
We take the extraanimary scuff
Of the expelled, the strangers, the uncommons.
The sighted one, but dazzled by the day,
Who is alive but born for prison stay,
Who praises earth as holy relegation,
Who visions dreams and recollects the names,
Not pleasure of reunion he gains
In love, but secret joys of separation.
1.
To realms of love we are delusive comets,
An axis dashed through crystal sphere keys.
From fire clouds, heavenly unease,
From cosmic storms we bring our glimmer covert -
And spread it further... Let the skies of cobalt
Depict us as a sword to earthly peace, -
To sun we run, like Icarus of Greece,
Unraveling our wind and flare coat,
And touch it - but, surprising, run away,
To night eternal from the light of day
In our one-way parabolic departure.
Our spirit rides us - not a rim's enough -
Through the unsetting sunsets' purple parcher,
Locked out of the trusted orbits' path.
2.
Locked out of the trusted orbits' path,
Unmatched in prayer books of perfect order -
Deprived of earth we'll be at earthly border
By earthly servants of the earthly math.
Insane's our incense, and our boat's a lath,
Like bees gone stray, we seek our swarm by odor.
We passed between our warder and rewarder
And city fire fills our sail with laugh.
For breath of storms' mysterious appeal,
By scrolls of trails, by tangled road turns
We hasten, and our way is hard and stern.
So let the thunders ring the clouds' peal,
Let doubts swirl embittering and tough!
The truth of dreams escapes the earthly wrath.
3.
The truth of dreams escapes the earthly wrath,
In the brocade of rays, the dawns retire,
The purl of mornings joins the daylight choir
The wane of moon will molder and burn off.
The plaits of light, the olive of the dove
Old ripple grinds to beads in gentle gyre,
But Tabor nights we worship and aspire
Will outlive the lower solar craft.
Our eyes resist to noonday aspirations
Of desert stiffness, topaz constellations,
Or resin streams, or rays of golden shine.
The day of night unfading is our compass.
In moonlight silk, like servants of the shrine,
The voices of the suns of midnight call us.
4.
The voices of the suns of midnight call us...
Our eyes are lost in telescopes' wells.
The stars' and planets' diamonds constell
In nebulae's and clusters' whirls and corals.
From Alpha Canis to the Capricornus
To Seven Sisters to the Argo's Sail
They cross the heavens telling their tale,
The seekers, perseverers and owners.
Oh dust of planets! Swarm of holy bees!
I measured, weighed and totaled all of these,
I gave them names, and balances, and contours...
But knowledge made not stellar fear fade.
Our memories of darkest ages stayed,
Evaded holy bath in Lethe's cold course!
5.
Evaded holy bath in Lethe's cold course,
We left relief to calmness of the night.
The wellspring of amnesia we denied,
We pledged no vow. We have not been collared.
The circuit's cut. The binding spells are quartered.
When, to the rest, the day is turquoise bright
And shining creeks in meadows never hide,
We see the lights astray on every corner.
The rustle of cane, the will-o'-wisp of swamps
The useless wind entangles, and stomps, and romps,
And brooms the helpless flock of Kore's kingdom,
Pelides guards, as if his eyeballs starve...
No honey cures us, no scent of linden;
Our spirit's poisoned, recollections tough.
6.
Our spirit's poisoned, recollections tough.
Our spirit grew from darkness, herb-resembling.
It bears venom of the tomb-resenting
And time-resenting womb of undercroft.
But such on earth impenetrable raft
No porphyry, no marble can assemble
That would delay the fury, bound, settle
The lava flows in our vessels pathed.
Oh graves o' worlds! Of suns forever set urn!
The corpse of Moon, the lifeless face of Saturn
The brain remembers, heart retains the snuff.
The mind developed in the stellar crashes,
But spirit's buried in the heap of ashes;
We take the extraanimary scuff!
7.
We take the extraanimary scuff,
The weight of dolor, poison of the fire.
The waving flag of all the griefs' empire
Is rustling in the yearning, mourning puff.
But still, despite the wounds, the fire gruff,
The flesh that lets us barely respire,
Laocoon pulls snakes like strings of lyre
Yet not a word he's saying; not a half.
We'll give up not the glory of the pain,
Nor joys of prison, nor pride of bitter chain,
Nor elevation of the doom and jail
For Lethe's peace and all the worldly romance!
We bear to the world the Holy Grail
Of the expelled, the strangers, the uncommons.
8.
Of the expelled, the strangers, the uncommons,
Who longed for being but could not become,
The heritage of song is never calm.
Bird's is the nest; beast's, lair; ours, but scorn is.
Debts never paid, gifts wasted, eggs uncoddled,
Path never stepped surrendered us to harm
From all trails' mists, from waves of any palm -
The honey spilt, confessions unrecorded.
Resurge to strive, to seek, to find yourself,
To love your shame, its humble, bitter scent,
Fall to the ground, search for desert dew,
Come to the strangers' settlements and pray
For broken bread; become a rhapsode new,
The sighted one, but dazzled by the day.
9.
The sighted one, but dazzled by the day,
Conceives the voices, words and chains of reasons,
The body odors, rustle of trees arisen,
The secret lace beside and far away,
As Phoebes leaves them never in dismay
But serves to them the wisdom of the lizard.
The manger holds the God. The cave of prison
Becomes the Christmas cave, the Holy Tray.
Great Mother Night, in her dark womb a-bearing
The precious Fruit the Father did return,
Bestows treasures on the one in turn
Who was, by jealous Sun, expelled to dreary
And lifeless land, and heartless forces' play,
Who is alive but born for prison stay.
10.
Who is alive but born for prison stay,
Can see the edges of the painted coffin,
The Sun's canoe, Anubis's muzzle scoffing,
And fields of corn in orderly array.
Bulls plough, sickles harvest, flail in play,
Rafts slide along, birds nest, beasts nap as often;
That's what he sees as shroud wrinkles soften
In flips of days and flips of people's way.
Without joy, without grief and tears
He sees the people's vain and restless fears,
No second thought, nor even question 'why'.
Without being, will and aspiration
He savors peace the other would deny
Who praises earth as holy relegation.
11.
Who praises earth as holy relegation,
Denies the spacious meadows' remit.
More than each step; each moment they permeate,
The distant planets' sparks of relivation,
As if the dead demand commemoration
And he is scraping glyphs on stone crypt;
The holy letters on the scratched concrete
Of known look can't form a combination.
He raises dust of earthly roadways,
Apostate priest, a deity free from praise,
In all the things old ornaments revealing,
The one who puts decay to knees and tames,
Who sees the Death - and lowers eyes revering,
Who visions dreams and recollects the names.
12.
Who visions dreams and recollects the names,
Who hears grass stalks' interrupting speeches,
He who conceives the knocking future's breaches,
To whom the sea is singing when inflames;
Who bears thought, like coat, on the frames,
Who with the soil his own soul bleaches,
Who lit his candles to the holy teachers,
Who pulled the cover from adored remains,
Who did not turn his feet to earthly pleasure
Of sisters' dance, or lunacy divine,
Who to the wine press wasted no vine,
Who, Orpheus-like, not a single measure
Held off from crossing, but returned in vain,
Not pleasure of reunion he gains.
13.
Not pleasure of reunion he gains
Who scorned the sweet oblivion from passion,
Who never knew the bodily concession,
Who drank no wine that places deadly stains.
From hope and achievement he restrains
His busy shoulders, turning to recession,
And takes no bonds, and quenches the compassion
The Moon ignites to forge our lively chains.
His own grief that he cannot divide,
Like ripple of seascape desolate and wide,
Will not be shared. Vinegar to him
Is dew. He chooses not alleviation
By peaceful waters at the final rim
In love, but secret joys of separation.
14.
In love, but secret joys of separation,
Daydreaming cinder, meeting pain we hold.
We shall not tread the moonlit linen fold,
Nor lock our lips in silent decoration.
We treasure not our needless revelations,
Escape from precious arms to visions cold,
Face-blind, but in the names our trust is bold
On twisted trails of our peregrination.
From all degrees of darkness we are seen
By eyes of foes full rage and sin,
With stars and sun no joy we share common,
But strain our path to stretches ever dark
Remembering our inner exile mark;
To realms of love we are delusive comets!
Original: www.kostyor.ru/poetry/voloshin/?n=18
Lethe: www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/l/lethe.html
Master page: allpoetry.com/poem/12737900