| "Cardinal Points" litetrary journal: www.stosvet.net |
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Marina Boroditskaya A DREAM |
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* * * __________________________________________ There is a tree. Its name escapes me A prose-like name, it flirts With poetry, wears poetic oddity. Ballad of a prison yard. A Japanese birch tree. Its slender trunk bore a bark of bronze. It grew in my friend's garden where On days that seem barely gone We made hideaways of folding chairs And a boy, bronze-skinned as an Indian Vanished as he clutched the tree And swarmed upwards, sending A circle trembling through the canopy. Fourteen years old and travelling light At the ravine we grazed our herd of bikes The radio hissed. And somewhere very far Invisible tanks slid into Prague. If not for tender little breasts At the least touch aching — We'd have pressed ourselves to the smooth bark And caught the earth quaking There is a tree. Its name escapes me. And yet like a chill dark shadow Like a child's first shameful thoughts It lies deep in a stranger's meadow. And if that trunk was felled long ago Leaving only a trace of sap on its tomb Then I kiss in my dreams the rings cut through And all their history enwombed. A DREAM __________________________________________ My poor spirit stands before The heavenly medical board Sight: shit, muscle tone: slight Hearing: flawed Naked, weighed and measured, A trembling fool Upon whom the narrowed eyes Of the recruiting archangel fall. The mysterious, the glorious St Michael, the battle-scarred Asks only one question: 'Soldier, did you fight hard?' 'Well... I put my best foot forward... I piped my pipe... Woke men's hearts... And I... I never expected any reward Ask Gabriel there — he'll take my part.' You wandered in a haze! You sprawled and lazed! You mucked about Dozed in the sun, half-dazed Cloud-gazed. Those heights you were to gain From the dark — they were beyond you! You will wake as a woman again With winter upon you. EXODUS __________________________________________ So I was wondering how they crossed that seabed When the whole watery firmament was combed, wave to floor And the squelch, squelch, squelch, and the walls on either side Going up and up like a great aquatic corridor The babies were carried, the older children, I'm sure Fell behind, shouting: Look! Look what I've found! Was it really possible to walk the watery course Without stopping once to lift a shell's pink round? What wonders they must have seen on that bed! The tentacles that jutted from the walls like booms And yet not all of them knew why they fled Nor remembered that behind them lay their doom. And when the prophet Mariam beat on her tambour And the sea walls bent, and with a tidal roar Crushed the Egyptians, their horses, swept, destroyed — Did they shudder, even briefly, before they danced for joy? |