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Winter bird, turn me into snow,
Helplessly falling past the staircase,
Its steps are up there, unnoticed,
Passing through a cloud without me.
Winter bird, turn me into а garden
Of frozen trees, their roots running
Into the autumn water of the timid streams,
Standing still without any obstacle.
Winter bird, turn me into a fruit,
Shielded by its tiniest skin from death,
Spotted in childhood behind a tiny door
Through tiny drops of sweat.
Winter bird, turn me into running
Of cold minutes in a transparent light,
Reflected by a glass,
Searching for a summer
Of one boy from the past.
May 13, 2020
Translated into English by Svetlana Gluzman
Зимняя птица
Преврати меня, зимняя птица, в лёд,
Вбирающий краски вечернего неба,
В забытость во времени детского следа,
В прозрачный осколок с отсутствием нот.
Преврати меня, зимняя птица, в снег,
Идущий беспомощно лестницы мимо,
Ступеньки её наверху и незримо
Проходят сквозь облако, где меня нет.
Преврати меня, зимняя птица, в сад
Замерзших деревьев, корнями ушедших
В осеннюю воду ручьёв оробевших,
Застывших на месте без всяких преград.
Преврати меня, зимняя птица, в плод,
Закрытый тончайшей корою от смерти,
Увиденной в детстве за маленькой дверцей
Сквозь проступивший каплями пот.
Преврати меня, зимняя птица, в бег
Холодных минут по прозрачному свету,
Стеклом отражённому в поисках лета
Каким-то мальчишкой из пройденных лет.
13 мая 2020
Born in Moscow, Ilya Bronshteyn is a poet and photographer. He graduated from Moscow State University of Arts and Culture. He came to the US in 1991; he lives and works in New York City.
Svetlana Gluzman is a philologist and an educator. She graduated from the philological department of Moscow State University where she studied classics. She has lived in New York City since 1992.
A book of poems in Russian by Victor Enyutin (San Francisco, 1983). Victor Enyutin is a Russian writer, poet, and sociologist who emigrated to the US from the Soviet Union in 1975.
This collection of personal essays by a bi-national Russian/U.S. author offers glimpses into many things Soviet and post-Soviet: the sacred, the profane, the mundane, the little-discussed and the often-overlooked. What was a Soviet school dance like? Did communists go to church? Did communists listen to Donna Summer? If you want to find out, read on!
“Cold War Casual” is a collection of transcribed oral testimony and interviews translated from Russian into English and from English into Russian that delve into the effect of the events and the government propaganda of the Cold War era on regular citizens of countries on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
Julia Wiener was born in the USSR a few years before the Second World War; her youth was spent during the “Thaw” period, and her maturity coincided with the years of “Soviet stagnation”, which, in her case, ended with her emigration to Israel in the early 1970s. Her wartime childhood, her Komsomol-student youth, her subsequent disillusionment, her meetings with well-known writers (Andrei Platonov, Victor Nekrasov, etc.) are described in a humorous style and colorful detail. Julia brings to life colorful characters – from her Moscow communal apartment neighbors to a hippie London lord, or an Arab family, headed by a devotee of classical Russian literature. No less diverse are the landscapes against which the events unfold: the steppes of Kazakhstan, the Garden of Gethsemane, New York, Amsterdam, London.
Julia Wiener’s novels focus on those moments when illusory human existence collapses in the face of true life, be it spiritual purity, love, old age, or death.
