Clamor in it with great mystery. 4 Smell of smoke rises from lean mutton With the mounds of snow the street is ringed From a blissful songlike semitone Flying at us is immortal spring, That this aria will sound forever: "To green meadows you will return" And to our feet falls a living sparrow On the snow that is so hot, it burns.  Venetian Life  1 To me the meaning of Venetian life is clear Bleary though it be and fruitless; Here she stares with smile instilling fear Through the dirty bluish window glass. 2 Thinning air, blue veins through skin of arm, A green brocade and the whitening snow From the coat they take a corpse, sleepy and warm, And on cypress stretcher lay it low. 3 And inside the basket candles burn As if pigeon flew into the shrine, And a man is dying in his turn In the theater and on night divine. 4 May no rescue come from foe or lover, More than platinum the rings of Saturn weighs. Block is set under black velvet cover, Face is beautiful and looks away. 5 Heavy, Venice, is your dress and belt, There are mirrors in the cypress frames Air is faceted. In bedroom mountains melt Of that dirty bluish glass. Nothing remains. 6 Fingers hold an hourglass or roses. Green of Adriatic sea, forgive, Why are you so quiet, Venetian hostess, From this holiday death row how do I leave? 7 The black Hesper flashes in the mirror, All will pass. The truth is dark and dour. Man is born. The pearl dies, barely clearer. Susanna the elders must conjure.  x x x  It is a pity that the winter falls Mosquitoes fly no more But you, my dear, allowed me to recall Light-headed straw. Dragonflies weave paths across the blue And like a swallow, circles mode - Is that there a basket over you Or pompous ode? I wish not to advise, comment, dissever - Excuses mean as little as they feel. The taste of whipped cream is forever And smell of orange peel. You push at me at random from behind As a result of this nothing gets worse What can I do: the most tender mind Is fit entirely on the surface! And then you try as with an angry spoon The yolk of egg continually to stir. It will get white, and now it will succumb And still, a little more.. Everything teases, all things sing in you As though it were roulade from Italy. And then again your little cherry mouth Begs for a drying grape from me. So do not try to be smart as that To you all is a whim, all is a minute, There is a shadow here of your hat, And a Venetian bautta is within it.  x x x  Here is the discus, like a golden sun - A blessed moment - in the air it stands - The world is held in time like apple in one's hands - Here will be heard only the Grecian tongue. A solemn zenith of the service to God's will, Light of round cupolas glows in July, That with full chest, outside of time we sigh Of endless meadows where all time stands still. Like noon eternal is the Eucharist - All drink the cups, all play and sing aloud, Before the eyes of all the cup of God Pours with a gaiety that can't desist.  x x x  When Psyche that is life descends After Persephone into transparent woods below With a green branch and Stygian tenderness Beneath her feet falls a blind swallow. Ghosts crowd about the fugitive and hurry To meet the new arrival with a prayer They twist their withered weakened arms before her Misunderstanding and with near despair. Souls are like women and their trifles love: Some hold a mirror, some perfumes that fizzle: There's leafless wood of voices from above, Dry lamentations fall in drops, like drizzle. In light stampede not knowing where to start, Soul does not recognize transparent grove of sage, Breathes into mirror and then tarries to impart The copper coin across the foggy passage.  x x x  Take from my open hands for your delight A bit of honey and a bit of sun As willed to us the bees of Proserpina. Not to untie again an unmoored boat, And not to know a shadow shod in fur, Nor yet to conquer fear of dreary lifetime: To us remain but kisses in the night, Fuzzy and shivering like little bees That fall and die as they depart the hive. They shimmer in transparent nigthtime breeze, Their home is haunted forest of Taigetos, They feast on mint, and honeycomb, and spacetime. Take then my wild gift for your delight, A simple wreath of withered little bees That died as they changed honey into sun.  Dusk of Liberty 1 Brothers, let's celebrate the dusk of liberty, Let's celebrate this great and dusky Yule. In boiling waters of the night like sea The heavy wood has been submerged and pulls In these dead years you rise above me O sun, to judge us all and rule. 2 Let's celebrate the fated burden, Which people's leader takes with tears. Let's celebrate the twilight burden Of power, it is very dear. If you have heart, time, our warden, While your ship sinks, you will hear. 3 In battle legions we have bound The swallows, and now Sun can't be seen, and all around Things sparkle, chirp, and grow And through dense net of dusk unbound I cannot see the sun, and the earth flows. 4 But we will try: A giant, clumsy, A screeching turning of the steering wheel. Earth flows. Get strong, men, don't be lazy As with a plow part the ocean. Kneel, We will remember in Lethean frenzy That earth has cost us ten heavens still.  x x x  1 On fearsome height stands wandering fire But does star glimmer thus, or are eyes lying? Transparent star, wandering fire Your brother, Petropole, is dying. 2 On fearsome height the earthly dreams all burn And a green star is flying. Oh, if you be a star -- brother of earth and heaven -- Your brother, Petropole, is dying. 3 A monstrous ship upon a fearsome height Wings outspread, is flying. Green star, you, in a gorgeous plight, Your brother, Petropole, is dying. 4 Transparent spring upon Nieva turned black Has broken. Wax of immortality melts as if crying. Oh, if you be a star -- Petropole, look back! Your brother, Petropole, is dying.  The Swallow 1 I have forgot the word that I had meant to say. To palace of the shades flies a blind swallow Upon clipped wings with shadows to play. Night's song is in oblivion sung below. 2 Immortelle does not bloom. I cannot hear bird's song. Transparent are the mantles of night's horse herd In a dry creek an empty shuttle swims along And even grasshoppers can't hear the lost word. 3 Slowly like curtain it grows, or temple yet, Suddenly Antigone seems mad and lurches Like a blind swallow she falls toward my feet With Stygian tenderness and with green branches. 4 O, if but to return the shame of see-through hands And convex joy of dawning recognition, I am afraid of weeping Aonids Of fog, of ringing and of gaping apparition. 5 The mortal's power is to love and seek, For him the sound into the palms will pour But I forgot the word that I had meant to speak And fruitless thought returns to palace dour. 6 Not of the same the shadow speaks in turn The girlfriend, Antigone, the swallow.. And on the lips, just like black ice, still burns The memory of Stygian ringing from below.  x x x  For this that your arms I could not more tightly keep - For this that your tender saltwater lips I've foresaken - As much as abhorrent to me is this ruin half-asleep - I must in Acropolis wait till the city awakens. The Aegeans ready the horse in the darkness profound, With sharp-toothed blades into cracks they invade and rupture Dry rustle of blood in the ears simply would not die down Of you not a whisper remains, not a sight, not a sculpture. How could I have thought you'd return to me, how did I dare? Why did I abandon so early without a warning? The rooster had not sang his song, nor the hills been laid bare, And into the woodwork the axe had not torn yet this morning. Like transparent tears on the walls have appeared drops of sap And city is feeling its forested ribcage with fire Through valves blood has rushed into life and then turned on the tap And three times to men have the mermaids called out of the mire. Where is my dear Troy, where's the palace, the women's hall? The tall starling-coop of King Priam is lying in shatters And like a dry rain wooden arrows continue to fall And more arrows just like a nutgrove arise in tatters. The sting of last starfleck shall painlessly flicker away, And morning will tap on the windowpane like a gray swallow, And slowly the day, like an ox once awakened in hay, Will rustle awake on sharp steps, and the light will follow.  x x x  Under a coxcomb of a milky white Isaac has built a graying pigeon cage The crozier irritates the graying quiet Gradations of the air the heart can gauge. There's wandering ghost of century-old requiem Then the grand bearing of the shroud Genessarian* darkness in decrepit seine Of Lenten week, a voice that weeps aloud. Upon warm altars smoke glows And then a priest exudes an orphaned cry A regal man: there is clean snow On the shoulders, and savage porphyry. Sophie's and Peter's Grand Cathedrals that withstood Centuries; warehouses of air and light Grain hangars of the universal good And corn-kilns of New Testament. In the harsh troubled year, not to your side The spirit drags across the steps in peace, The wolf's trail of disaster reaches wide And will not change over the centuries. Free is the slave who once has conquered fear And who beyond all measure kept, through grief, In deep cornbins, in chilly granaries The grain of utter and complete belief. * Gennesarian: ref. Luke 5:1, Matthew 14:34, and Mark 6:53, a Biblical town.