LIES

Lying to the young is wrong.
  Proving to them that the lies are true is wrong.
Telling them
 that God’s in his heaven
and all’s well with the world
   is wrong.
They know what you mean.
   They are people too.
Tell them the difficulties
          can’t be counted,
and let them see
             not only
           what will be
but see
            with clarity
  these present times.
Say obstacles exist they must encounter,
sorrow comes,
        hardship happens.
The hell with it.
           Who never knew
the price of happiness
       will not be happy.
Forgive no error
           you recognize,
it will repeat itself,
  a hundredfold
and afterward
        our pupils
will not forgive in us
   what we forgave.

1952
(translated by Robin Milner-Gulland and Peter Levi, revised by Albert C. Todd)
 

BABI YAR

No monument stands over Babi Yar.
A drop sheer as a crude gravestone.
I am afraid.
            Today I am as old in years
as all the Jewish people.
Now I seem to be
                a Jew.
Here I plod through ancient Egypt.
Here I perish crucified, on the cross,
and to this day I bear the scars of nails.
I seem to be
            Dreyfus.
The Philistine
              is both informer and judge.
I am behind bars.
                Beset on every side.
Hounded,
       spat on,
              slandered.
Squealing, dainty ladies in flounced Brussels lace
stick their parasols into my face.
I seem to be then
                a young boy in Byelostok.
Blood runs, spilling over the floors.
The barroom rabble-rousers
give off a stench of vodka and onion.
A boot kicks me aside, helpless.
In vain I plead with these pogrom bullies.
While they jeer and shout,
                         "Beat the Yids. Save Russia!"
some grain-marketeer beats up my mother.
0 my Russian people!
                   I know
                         you
are international to the core.
But those with unclean hands
have often made a jingle of your purest name.
I know the goodness of my land.
How vile these anti-Semites-
                            without a qualm
they pompously called themselves
the Union of the Russian People!
I seem to be
            Anne Frank
transparent
           as a branch in April.
And I love.
          And have no need of phrases.
My need
       is that we gaze into each other.
How little we can see
                     or smell!
We are denied the leaves,
                         we are denied the sky.
Yet we can do so much --
                        tenderly
embrace each other in a darkened room.
They're coming here?
                    Be not afraid. Those are the booming
sounds of spring:
                 spring is coming here.
Come then to me.
               Quick, give me your lips.
Are they smashing down the door?
                                No, it's the ice breaking ...
The wild grasses rustle over Babi Yar.
The trees look ominous,
                      like judges.
Here all things scream silently,
                               and, baring my head,
slowly I feel myself
                    turning gray.
And I myself
            am one massive, soundless scream
above the thousand thousand buried here.
I am
     each old man
                 here shot dead.
I am
    every child
               here shot dead.
Nothing in me
             shall ever forget!
The "Internationale," let it
                            thunder
when the last anti-Semite on earth
is buried forever.
In my blood there is no Jewish blood.
In their callous rage, all anti-Semites
must hate me now as a Jew.
For that reason
                I am a true Russian!

1961
(translated by George Reavey)
 

PRAYER BEFORE THE POEM

A poet in Russia is more than a poet.
  There the fate of being born a poet
falls only on those stirred by the pride of belonging,
who have no comfort, and no peace.

The poet in Russia is the image of his own age,
and the visionary symbol of the future.
Without timidity, the poet sums up
the total of all that has happened before him.

Can I do this?  I am not a very cultured man…
My hoarded prophecies contain no promises…
But the spirit of Russia is soaring over me
and boldly challenges me to at least try.

And, falling quietly to my knees,
prepared for both death and victory,
I humbly ask for help, from you
great Russian poets…

Give me, Pushkin, your harmony,
your speech, free and unchained,
your captivating fate —
as if in jest, to call down fire with words.

Give me, Lermontov, your bitter gaze,
the venom of your contempt,
and the monk’s cell of your unsociable soul,
where hidden in the silence of your harshness
breathes sister-like the lamp of human kindness.

Give me, Nekrasov, while soothing my exuberance,
the agonies of your lashed muse —
at main entrances, at railways,
and in the open spaces of forests and fields.
Give me the strength of your intelligence.
Give me the measure of your tormented heroism
so that I can go, hauling all of Russia
like the bargement heaving on a towrope.

Oh, give me, Blok, the mists of prophecy,
and two curved wings,
so that the music, hiding the eternal riddle,
shall flow through all my body.

Give me, Pasternak, the disorder of days,
the confusion of branches,
the fusion of scents and shadows
with the torment of this century,
so that the world like a garden murmuring
shall blossom and ripen,
so that, for centuries, your candle
shall burn in me.

Yesenin, give me for good luck tenderness
to birch trees and meadows, to beasts and to people,
and to all others on the earth
that you and I love so defenselessly.

Give me, Myakovsky,
  boulder-lumpiness,
    turbulence,
        a deep bass,
a grim refusal to appease scum,
so that even I,
         hacking my way through time,
may tell of it
      to those who come.

1964
(from "Bratsk Station" translated by Tina Tupikina-Glaessner, Geoffrey Dutton, and Igor Mezhakoff-Koriakin)
 

MEMENTO

Like a reminder of this life
of trams, sun, sparrows,
and the flighty uncontrolledness
of streams leaping like thermometers,
and because ducks are quacking somewhere
above the crackling of the last, paper-thin ice,
and because children are crying bitterly
(remember children's lives are so sweet!)
and because in the drunken, shimmering starlight
the new moon whoops it up,
and a stocking crackles a bit at the knee,
gold in itself and tinged by the sun,
like a reminder of life,
and because there is resin on tree trunks,
and because I was madly mistaken
in thinking that my life was over,
like a reminder of my life -
you entered into me on stockinged feet.
You entered - neither too late nor too early -
at exactly the right time, as my very own,
and with a smile, uprooted me
from memories, as from a grave.
And I, once again whirling among
the painted horses, gladly exchange,
for one reminder of life,
all its memories.

1974
(translated by Arthur Boyars and Simon Franklin)

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