What’s that house ahead, sunk in gloom from view, Standing open to the seven high winds that blew, All the windows facing the ditch running through, And the gates on the high road hung askew... I was tired, I was, yet I unhitched my team. "Hey, someone alive, come and help unload!" No one; only a shadow in the doorway, it seemed, And a kite circling down over the road. Inside the house, more a tavern you see, And the people: every third one’s an enemy. They would break the jaw of an unasked guest; Even Christ in the corner hangs crooked and unblessed! And a strange conversation there began. Someone tore at a guitar and sang-screamed his throat raw, And a crazy fit-ridden thief of a man Pulled back the tablecloth and a blade I saw! "Who would answer me, what’s this place?" I cried. ‘There has been no plague; why have the candles died? And the air leaks out, though the wall is a sieve... Have you people forgotten how to live? "Where’s the master, to give a guest wine? It is wrong To have your doors open and your souls shut, I say!" And they answer me: "It seems you have travelled long And forgotten folk; we have always lived this way. "We have eaten grass, and it went to seed, And our souls have gone sour from that sorrel weed. And our only joy was in wine, we thought. And we razed our home, hanged each other, fought..." "I ran horses to death! Ran down wolves in my flight! Show me a land where the lanterns give light! Show the place I had sought, that in my dreams I was shown, Where the floor’s smooth and level, where they sing and not moan!" "We have never heard of such homes as you say. We have learned to live long without light of day. In mean whispers we are since the dawn of time, Under the icons, in soot and crime..." And, crossing myself, I walked free of all ties From that smog where God’s images hang as they would, Wherever horses would run, wherever looked my eyes, Where not-frightening people live as people should. What had sunk, what had floated, what had risen and set... Life threw me around but not too far yet... Or perhaps the way I sang of you wasn’t right, Eyes so black, tablecloth so white...
© Tamara Vardomskaya. Translation, ?