The rain stops and, for an instant, the sun emerges from clouds.

The shadow of the pen appears on the white paper.

A redwing is singing somewhere. The wind rises

and raindrops roll off the leaves of the honeysuckle.

They say I haven’t written as suggestively as in my youth,

in the book Of dust and colours. The sun

casts a yellowish light on the quivering green world

and vanishes once again behind a cloud. I remember

that I must make a roof for the empty beehive

where the wasps nested. In the autumn I must trim down

some apple tree branches growing in front of the loft door

that are a nuisance when we want to put hay in the loft. Also

I should wash some used preserve cans:

they’re good for nails or to mix paint.

When I tried for the first time seriously to write a poem,

it was in Russian. It begins like this:

Nad…i mrachnym Baikalom

odinokaya chayka letit…

Isn’t it suggestive?

There is a time for everything. At the gate

the water ash, Ptelea trifoliata, is in bloom

and the rye stalks are already rustling dry.

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