By Joseph Brodsky

The English Poetic Translation by Anna Polibina-Polansky

* * * In Memory of Dad: Australia

("Ty ozhil, prisnilos' mne, i uehal...")

You got revived, I dreamed of it. You went there -

So, to Australia. The voice, thrice echoed.

It called me and complaint of the climate wretched,

And, with the housing, they can't still tackle.

It's pitiful, the center is afar.

But still, the ocean is nearby, yet.

The third floor, and the bath is all ajar.

Legs fatten, slippers cannot keep them quiet.

The sound was articulate and stark.

Within my consciousness, it was marked.

"A-de-la-i-da", wailed at the receiver.

As if a blinder knocked against the wall.

It's better yet, than ashes out sieved, no?

Or our loan from death, is so recalled.

Oh splinters of a monologue, that lonesome.

You turned all fume. And steamless, are my losses.

1989/tr. 2020

I devote this rendition of mine, to my diligent and fruitful colleague-by-genres Ilya Shambat, who has been a citizen of Australia for decades, I believe, and who has been my kind friend-and-colleague for years already.