Aging Nomad,
with one wooden leg,
makes his way up
to Winnipeg.
Here in Canada
winter returns,
the night is pitch black
but the moon still burns.
An aging crow
in perilous flight
lost a wing
to the wind’s might.
A doe with buckshot
sprayed in her side
hobbled three days
through the woods and died.
Would that whisky
alone could warm
Nomad against
the impending storm.
Decades pass
yet one never learns
why night is pitch black
though the moon burns.
Out of these years
what does one gain
but fevers and a lack
to augment the pain?
Pain upon pain
with nothing to assuage
the toil and rack
administered to age.
* * *
Одноногий бродяга
скитаться привык,
на Виннепег
держит путь старик.
Здесь, в Канаде,
уже лютует зима,
и ночью ни зги,
хотя луна зажжена.
Старой вороне
порвало крыло,
с ветром сражаться
ей тяжело.
С дробью в боку
в лесу олениха
три дня прохромала,
упокоилась тихо.
Если бы только
виски спасал
от ненастья бродягу,
но и с этим обвал.
Годы проходят,
неувязка одна –
ночью ни зги,
хотя луна зажжена.
Что толку от десятков
прошедших лет?
лихорадку и боль
они не утолят…
Попытка лишь пытка,
не уняться боли,
годы плоть разъедают,
не хуже соли.
Wayne Pernu is an American poet who grew up in Minnesota and now lives in Portland, Oregon.
Marina Eskin was born in Leningrad (St. Petersburg). She is a physicist by training. Marina is the author of four books of poetry in Russian, her texts and translations appear in various print and online publications. She is a member of the editorial board of “Interpoesia” journal.
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)