When Day's Light Fades Far Away

When day's light fades far away
And in darkness descends on huts,
The whole sky glitters overhead,
A colossal atom in motion sways.

And often by this dream I'm in torment,
That in another corner of the universe,
The same garden, darkness and stars
Exist, their beauty forever unspent.

And perhaps some other poet seems
To stand anguished in this garden,
Asking why, in my fading years,
I torment him with dark dreams.

1948

Conclusion

The world has a single facet, but nature has two,
And rushing to imitate the archetype,
The free and greedy soul
Ripens every year in spite. 

Isn't it strange, that in the universe's expanse,
In the living family of planets and stars,
Love neutralizes grief
And light overcomes the dark!

 Centuries of perfection are not in vain,
Wise nature in stages
Creates man with its very hands
From the dust of ages.

1948

Grasshopper

Day comes and my forgotten dust
Returns to the bosom of brambles and springs.
My mind falls asleep, but in quantum worlds
A little grasshopper opens wide its wings.

And crossing the sky overhead,
Miniscule stars appear in formation,
And with outstretched wings it sings
Its first hymn to the glory of creation.

Content with a fragment of existence,
It doesn't know that my living thought
Formed momentarily above the abyss,
So it's wonderful world could be wrought.

Foolish grasshopper! If it only realized
That poetry long ago had a face
That reflected its magical stars
Like mirrors in the depths of space!

1947

Nightingale

The forest choir had just fallen silent,
A finch was about to release its voice.
In a crown of leaves a nightingale's silhouette
Alone, unceasing above, began to rejoice.

O insidious passion, the more I pursue you,
The less am I able to ridicule.
Have you the power, insignificant bird,
To be silent in this radiant cathedral?

Slant rays of light, glancing the surface
Of cool leaves, vanish in the distance.
The more fidelity from you I suffer,
The less trust I put in your allegiance.

But you, nightingale, fastened to art,
Like Antony in love with Cleopatra's fire,
Frenzied, how can you keep emotion apart,
And be captivated by love's desire?

Forsaking these evening groves, why
Are you breaking my heart?
I'm smitten by you, yet, how easy to try
To separate, to let misfortune depart.

Alas, it's obvious, this world's a creation
For beasts, parents of the desert's first symphony,
Who, hearing in a cave your exclamation,
Bellow and howl: “Antony! Antony!”

1939

Birds

Barely swaying
At a point where the winds cross,
Light birds hung
Like icon lamps amid the heavens.

Their tiny telescopic eyes
Peered straight down.
People crawled like bed-bugs,
And brooks meandered.

A mouse ran across a field,
And a bird pounced on it.
The little corpse, instantly disfigured,
Was dragged into the reeds.

And sitting there, the bird
Tore the mouse with its fingers,
And from its mouth a stream of water
Flowed onto the ground.

And shifting the tiny telescopes
Of its dimmed eyes,
The bird thought. A tarantas
Came rolling over the hill.

I was sitting in that tarantas,
As it sped across the field,
And my own wretched fate
Weighed on my heart as well.

1933

Morning

A rooster bursts into song, it's daybreak!

In the forest, a mound of silver lies in its wake.

Battalions of black trees stand there,
Firs like lances, maples like bursts of fire,
Their roots like bolts, branches like beams,
Winds caress them, stars shine above.

All morning, woodpeckers rock on a green oak,
Short heads hunched into shoulders,
And knock out with their axes
Dark notes from the forest's book.

Born in the wilderness,
Sound reverberates,
A blue spider quivers
On a thread.
Air vibrates,
Transparent and clear,
A leaf shimmers
In the gleaming of stars.

And birds, clad in bright helmets,
Sit on the gates of a forgotten poem.
A young girl plays naked in the river
And squints at the sky, laughing.

A rooster bursts into song, it's daybreak!
In the forest, a mound of silver lies in it's wake.

1946

Beethoven

That very day when your harmonies
Mastered the complex world of labor,
Light subdued light, cloud passed into cloud,
Thunder piled on thunder, star entered star.

And seized by frenzied inspiration,
In an orchestra of storms, a shudder of thunder,
You climbed the staircase of the clouds
And touched the music of the spheres.

Like a forest of pipes, a lake of melody,
You bound the hurricane's discord,
Pushed your lion's visage through the organ,
And cried out into nature's very face.

And in the presence of worldly space,
You instilled such thought into this cry,
That word, with a howl, broke from words
And became music, crowning your maned head.

In the bull's horns a lyre sang anew,
An eagle's bone became a shepherd's flute,
And you grasped the living beauty of this world,
And separated its goodness from evil.

And through the peace of worldly space,
The ninth wave washed to the very stars--
O Thought, reveal yourself! Word, become music,
Strike to the hearts of men, let the world rejoice!

1946