Nina Gorsky

The wind, crispy, fragile and weightless,
tastes of late flowers and sun.
They’re full of a wonderful sadness –
the wind and the heart, put in one.

An autumn is coming right now;
and the nightingale – a sad bard –
midst twigs, sharp as the sunny crown,
had mourned the red leaves and cried.

It’s raining some time, and more thrilling
and sweeter is fever of love:
the bright woman’s image is filling
the dreams and the everyday life.

A flesh’s in a fit, long and fatal:
like some poor bloom in a frost,
it’s slowly loosing its petals
to love’s dazzling flashes and thirst.


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, January, 2003