Bella Akhmadulina

And I shall tell you at the end:
farewell, don’t pledge self to love, helpless.   
I go mad, or just ascend 
to the high echelon of madness.

How had you loved? – You’d put aside
even the Death. But ‘tis not matter.
How had you loved? You’d done that right,
but you had had to do that better. 

Hell of a blunder! I shall not
Forgive you else. It lives – my body –
it roams, sees the real world,
but just with emptiness it’s loaded.

My mind yet makes its scanty work,
But arms had helplessly felled down,
and, likewise a small airy flock,
vanish aslant all smells and sounds.


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, January 12, 2005