By Joseph Brodsky

The English Poetic Renditions, by Anna Polibina-Polansky

* * * An Up Loaded Trolley

("Skrip teleg tem sil'ney...")

So coaches and trolleys all were squeaking -

The more, the denser grew the shadows long.

The path in wheats was all in briars, weak so.

The squeaking grew with that malicious song.

To woods, were coming those ways, through pastures.

The wind gave such a generous, wide gesture.

The beeches and the birches trembled swifter.

The pile of stems looked into flawless sky.

So rootage of the tree was rough and twiggy.

Instead of birds, the wheels tolled of the height.

Oh those wooden wheels, in tiny twigs!

Oh those scolding coachers, of whims!

January, 1964/April, 2020

* * *

Of woods, the oven cherished its sweet fame.

The charcoals were of sparks, throughout the winter.

Back to the winter. Our route is the same.

So fluttered the unknown, chaotic splinters.

How strong is sadness if you still recall,

Instead of parks, those hopeless wooden landscapes.

There is no more of splinters you can hold

So dear to your soul, badly aching.

So everything came to its end, perhaps

Two centuries ago! You roam like music;

An uninhabited and wooden lapse

Of time is heard, but not an axe confusing.

Sad bushes hide away those distant hills.

The noiseless moon burns trunks; its flame is still.

Tr. in April, 2020