No, we didn’t get deafer or older
(Joseph Brodsky)
In this world it is noblest
to walk around town with a poet,
when it is easier for the poet to point out
that from which poems are likely to sprout.
Will I be able, more acutely than a deaf-mute,
to catch the gesture, which precedes the word-root?
Poetry has to be a bit hard of hearing,
when, in front of an audience, it tries
to provide itself with exacting
long drawn-out translations into Sign,
will I be able … no, I’m afraid it’s too late—
it has already missed its sell-by date.
Whenever and for whatever reason it was uttered:
“Thou who hast legs, arise, on thy feet!”—
no, we’ll arise neither earlier nor later
than we did from the very start.
I can say it, but will I be able to understand
there’s nothing nobler in the land …?
Translated by Daniel Weissbort