Windows on Trubnaya Square in Spring
With swaying squares
of the flowering and ringing
of all my childhoods, familiar
to transparent deserted cities,
I touch them, and the maidenly weddings
will continue the same
without either music or doors,
the depths are glimmering
greenish – somber
and beyond them weep for them
butchers smeared in rain
fallen on heaps of fish,
and again a stamping and a stepping – I am here, I am here,
a stamping and a stepping – once and for ever – like a bell in mist –
and like – titles – of akathists –
I dream – of a red – separation – and meeting
1961
On Vladimir Yakovlev’s Painting “Black Flower”
to a. i. pevzner
let it long remain
turned toward you
black mysterious Guardian
severe and elegant
flower –
accompanying from morning
to your little table
the different shadows –
wreaths of quietist
patriarchal ponds –
trembling in air
april 9, 1963