I love you now, in fact, And I don’t hold it back. It’s not "before", not "after" - your rays set me afire. Whether I weep or I smile I love you in this while, - the future I don’t want, the past I don’t desire. "I loved you" (in the past) is worth than breathing last. My wings are cut, and I’m restrained by tender feeling, although the greatest poet stated once: "I was in love with you - my love may still be living"... As if it were disavowed, faded, for it implies compassion, condescension, it’s what one feels for overthrown kings. There is regret in it for something outdated, subsided striving, softened aspiration and disbelief in "love you" kind of things. My current love has got no detriment, no spot. My age is under way - I want no venesection! At this continuous present I do not live in the past nor dream of future foundation. Through thick and thin I’ll get to you somehow, you bet! - my feet put into chains and bound with heavy irons. But when I say "I love you", even yet don’t make me add "I will", by error or with bias. "I will" has got a bitter connotation, for it implies a counterfeit, decay - unpleasant, a loophole for retreating, anyhow, insipid poison and contamination, slap in the face, affront upon the present, a doubt that I really love you now. I dream my dream in French, it has a wide tense range, the future and the past are different from ours. I’m pilloried, disgraced and outraged, The language seems to set me at defiance. The language gap, oh my! I’m about to cry! Yet we can work it out, we have our firm intentions. I love you at the times which will comply with Future, Past and Present Perfect tenses.
© Alec Vagapov. Translation, 1998