1
The sun moves toward sunset, above the sea the air is clean
a young attorney comes to see another lawyer,
they sit on the terrace, like in some novel scene
the wine is Amanti, their ties are Armani
while out where white foam dissolves in blue
water, Goryenna shines with incandescent beauty,
confounds the search for words that could describe it,
red at sunset, green in the light of stars
Just five more minutes of melting lazy bliss
bad move, says lawyer to lawyer, to have settled here
there’s a saying shared by all worn down by sorrow
peace will ne’er be found by them, even after death
here, since the beginning of all time / the souls of those once
put to death unjustly / gather here from all around
looking for attorneys / they come together here
demanding a retrial / or the rumor mill
In its deep blue valleys, rusty hillsides
wander shades of the innocent, ghosts of the murdered
The local Chianti isn’t bad / aah, my friend, just stop
2.
Where the field beyond the fields / obscures another field
the sun is in a crimson pillar / a cloud of powdery snow /
a dry snowy storm
that was where they sort of lived / though never very well
3.
Look how these fatheaded towers / or really, towering thunderheads
release, completely harmless, the final green ray of light
4.
I do not love you, he said, but count me your devoted friend
the train leaves the gorgeous station, heading south
those leaden arches, in the insect manner,
purloined from nature by a tubercular engineer
Their roofs fade away in a long fluid arch
let us praise the T-square and firm pencil
Ladies’ hats and suitcases wander back and forth
how strange indeed that none of it’s forever
while she, tears veiled, walks on, her face gone pale,
embodying a classic image from interwar prose
Wings of dragonflies shine blue, fur-lined with smoke
effortlessly / (deflecting the last-bell ball)
holding the sky / while
from other wholly unknown places / from airports very far away
a swarm of wholly other insects
Along the rusty fields of green of a green and foreign land
the crawling caterpillar train-cars can be seen so well
like aspic on a plate the motley foreign cities
god, what will happen to us / same as always, my child
5.
What will you then dream of, while the storm blows
just look how lovely Nice is, look at Courchevel
look at these parvenus we’ve called forth from the dark
look, closer and closer, they’re almost like you and me
beneath Parisian roofs / almost like you and me
The local Chianti isn’t bad/ aah, my friend, just stop
While steam-powered life booms loud in honor of science
let us praise intelligent hands and precise sketches
the pumping station towers, the houses that are small
come, why are you crying again? / oh, I just don’t know
What will you then dream of, in the black and desolate steppe
it’s just heat lightning / go to sleep, my sweetie, sleep…
6
It seems that I can hear them in the very simplest things
as if some bats were thrashing round and squeaking —
flying it whistles / a bat / on tiny shreds of dark
remember we
do you remember
you all remember
how happy we once were
how a chaffinch whistled to us, a passing grass-snake rustled
in the garden where there’s trees of apple, and also trees of pear
I do not love you, he said, but I’ll be a faithful husband
and she, gulping back tears, stands already ‘neath the crown
embodying a classic image of old classic prose.
How frothful is the seafoam, how swollen is the surf,
how veiled is mount Goryenna in its shadows pale and blue
Lights are flashing here and there, the heat is made of pitch
don’t you worry, those there / are just spotlights
7.
The paper-thin borders of green blue lands
just look how lovely Nice is, look at Courchevel
how much gladsome flesh is being shipped in
by these snow-white airplanes and bright red trains
how silly are the fashions dictated by this spring!
They will go to take the waters / she’ll return alone
Ladies’ hats and suitcases, little white boats
how strange indeed that none of it’s forever
the call of distant paradise, a subtle itch beneath the skin
where are we being taken, I don’t know, just know we’re being led
As if bats came whistling across the waters’ expanse
quiet, my love, quiet, soon our turn will come
for us with our things, soon, and the wind will touch our cheeks
of course, we’re bourgeoisie, for heaven’s sake, who else?
Zagreb, Paris and Nice — all just mirages in the steppe
it’s just heat lightning / go to sleep, my sweetie, sleep.
The light at grandpa’s dacha flinched sharply and went out
As if by some mad chance, we could be saved
just listen to us, listen
just listen to us, listen
just listen to us, listen
just listen
listen
to us
Lights are flashing here and there, an august thunderstorm
don’t worry, it’s…
. . .
just close your eyes
8.
The sun makes its rounds above the world’s water
the gray-haired attorney answers his friend
you and I’ve been sitting here nearly till dark
but, no big deal, here, have a bit more wine
the local Chianti isn’t bad. Oh, my friend, just stop
who cares how high the mountains are in our personal hell
all these conversations don’t go anywhere
The Alps and Appalachians / no one will mourn for us
forgive me, but / at the very end of the road
if you need to quarantine there is no better place
Look how these fatheaded towers / or really, towering thunderheads
release, completely harmless, a final green ray
Look at the sun drowning in the bay, / a cloud melting in the sky
and if someone gives a moan / something of it reaches us
but hearing gets rickety with age, and every cry of farewell
is really more of a nuisance when you are, alas, an old man
Who knows who might be crying there, letting water out from eyes
The light at grandpa’s dacha flinched sharply and went out
Alas, we all, unfailingly, wherever we may be
see mount Goryenna shining from every corner of the earth
it confounds the search for words that could describe it,
it is red at sunset, purple in the light of stars
and those who brought us here will have to answer for that too
But listen, it’s about to crack, / our chrysalis of common fate
each of us was killed. Each of us will resurrect
___________________________
This translation was included in Communiques, Maria Galina’s seventh book of poems. Communiques, completed by Galina a day before the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, was translated from Russian and Ukrainian by Anna Halberstadt and Ainsley Morse and published in March 2024 by Cicada Press.
Maria Galina was born in Kalinin (now Tver) and grew up in Ukraine. She started publishing fiction in the 1990s under the pen name Maxim Golitsyn. Two of her novels, Little Boondock and Mole-Crickets, were nominated for the Big Book Award in 2009 and 2012. She is also a prize-winning poet and a literary critic, as well as a regular contributor to the literary journal Novyi Mir. Since the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine, she has lived in Odesa.
Anna Halberstadt is a poet and a translator from Russian, Lithuanian and English, who grew up in Lithuania and was trained as a psychologist at Moscow University and in the U.S. Her poetry in English was widely published in English-language journals, and Russian, in Arion, Interpoezia, Children of Ra and many others. Her poetry was translated into Lithuanian, Ukrainian, and Tamil. She published four collections of poetry in English, and Transit and Gloomy Sun (in Russian).
This collection includes poems written in 2020-2023. (Russian edition)
“The Lingering Twilight” (“Сумерки”) is Marina Eskin’s fifth book of poems. (Russian edition)
Launched in 2012, “Four Centuries” is an international electronic magazine of Russian poetry in translation.
A collection of moving, often funny vignettes about a childhood spent in the Soviet Union.
“Vivid picture of life behind the Iron Curtain.” —Booklist
“This unique book will serve to promote discussions of freedom.” —School Library Journal
A book of poems by Maria Galina, put together and completed exactly one day before the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This is Galina’s seventh book of poems. With translations by Anna Halberstadt and Ainsley Morse.
A new collection of poems by Ian Probstein. (In Russian)