Three Poems by Joseph Brodsky

The Editors and Board of Trustees of the Russian Review

Three Poems by Joseph BrodskyAuthor(s): George L. Kline and Joseph BrodskySource: Russian Review, Vol. 25, No. 2 (Apr., 1966), pp. 131-134Published by: Wiley on behalf of The Editors and Board of Trustees of the Russian ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/127326 .

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Three Poems by Joseph Brodsky Translated from the Russian

By George L. Kline

THE PUSHKIN MONUMENT

. . . and Pushkin falls on bluish prickly snow.

-Eduard Bagritsky- A silence.

And no further word. An echo. And exhaustion. . . . His verses fluttered mutely to the ground, ending in blood. They gazed about them slowly, tenderly. They felt unjointed, cold, and strange. Above them stood the gray-haired doctors and the Seconds, bent and helpless. Above them stars still sang, and shuddered; above them the four winds grew still . . .

. . . An empty avenue.

*Concerning Joseph Brodsky see The Russian Review, Vol. 24, No. 4, October, 1965, pp. 341-353.

131



132 The Russian Review

The keening of the storm. An empty avenue. A poet's monument. An empty avenue. The keening of the storm. A lowered head: exhaustion.

. . . On such a night to lie in a warm bed is pleasanter

than standing on a pedestal.

PILGRIMS

Past arenas and temples, past churches and taverns, past elegant graveyards, past thundering markets, past the world, and past sorrow, past Rome, and past Mecca - scorched by the sun's blueness, the pilgrims are trekking.

They are hunchbacked, they hobble. They are hungry, half-naked with eyes full of sunset and hearts full of sunrise. The wastes sing behind them, heat-lightning flares feebly, the stars sweep above them, birds screech to them hoarsely: "The world has not altered."



Three Poems 133

No. It has not altered. It is what it has been. It is what it will be. Its snow-crust still dazzles, its warmth is still doubtful. The world will be faithless and yet everlasting. Perhaps men can know it and yet it is endless.

Which means there's no meaning in faith in oneself, or in God; all that's left is the Road and the Dreaming. Yet earth will know sunsets. And earth will know dawnings.

Dead soldiers will loam it, live p oets affirm it.

TO GLEB GORBOVSKI

Oh, to walk out of love, into daybright and sun, no returning, Hear the rustle of grass in the lawns leading back. In a

warmness That is cloudsoft as day; the dark evening, when vicious,

half-sleeping, All the night-dogs give tongue, piercing straight through

the lawn's nested quadrants.

In this difficult time we must live through our years and outrun them.

As we face each fresh pain we'll forget how the past has misused us,

Accepting these wounds, like the news, every hour on the hour, As we restlessly furrow the mist of each new-minted morning,

How impetuous the Fall in this year, in this time of my wanderings,



134 The Russian Review

In the white of the sky stand the dark-red processions, now silent,

And the leaves tumble down, hour by hour, past the trees now grown naked,

Where they strike on the glass, and the stone, like a city- man's daydream.

I must somehow wait out, or live through, this mute season, Seeing there at the window a face that is new, and a hand

on my knee . . . In the white of the sky, through the leaves, on the transparent

ribbon of sunset; It's like father-and-daughter - and someone goes first,

I am certain.

Now the leaves tumble past, soaring up; now they strike the flat earth, falling sidewise.

The leaves tumble and swirl as they fly past the tightly- locked windows.

All that now can be seen in the fading and glimmering lightfall Is the color of life - it's like father-and-daughter, not ready

for dying.

Come alive on the earth; no, you cannot, you lie as you must lie.

Oh, then, live on the earth as you wish, even falling. But a time yet will come when you'll outlive old pain and

scabbed sorrow. And the years will crash down, without me or the love I

have brought you.

And we'll end in a blaze on the tonic, a high-soaring major; You will slide down the glass - as a dress rustles down

from the shoulders - returning. You will stay in one place, as before, a long time without

moving: Not the anguish of autumn, but waiting for winter - a song

without ending.



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Three Poems by Joseph Brodsky