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P. Grushko

The Lonesome Friend

(From Juan Ramon Jimenez)

You will never run down me, friend.
As the mad you’ll run back in sore tear,
But there’s no me at all in the land.

And I’ll mount in air behind me
Crags, so high that evoke a fear,
And you’ll can neither hear me nor see.

I will try to destroy all the paths
Which can ever direct you right here –
You forgive me, my fellow, at once!...

You cannot stay for long there, my friend…
Maybe, there I will once more appear,
But there’s no you at all in the land.

Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, December, 2002