Music

Translated from the Russian of Olga Sedakova

for Alexandre Vustich

In the air gates, they now say,
before the heavenly steppes,
which are about 150 poplin marshes,
alone, as usual, to wander the splendrous
ecumene,
mangling various tongues,

expecting what’s unknown: not fortune, not fare,
nor the sudden transparence of opaque life,
I listen like a dog, distinguish between
sounds—
Sounds are not sounds:
prelude to music, which no one can name: mine

for it is more than a tie:
music, with no harmony or style,
no clef or staff, no bar,
nor even the Guidonian hand:
only shiftings of the inaccessible and high.

Music, sky of Mars, star of the ancient battle,
where we are all at once and irrevocably defeated
by the approach armed forces make,
by the striking of surf,
the first touch of the waves.

O I asked for you on the hill of Zion,
not remembering
the neighboring or distant,
no one, nothing —
for the unresounding sound,
for the unrung ringing,
for the sake of the Almighty,
for Thy suffering.

It is a city in the middle of Europe,
gates of air:
Budapest it seems,
but the imperial view,
its embankments and towers, I do not see, no use to pursue
and no purpose. This transit.
Music, it is transit.

All will be, all lost, all soft, soft fist…
But before the arms of Morpheus,
before the quickened slipping from the heights—
a famous marching band,
Musique Petit Rostova, to be shot next morning,
prepares to exit the capsule with space deafness.

And everyone — the conductor.
Well, fire away, music! first of these,
Go! Strings, all together.
OK.
Now — cello,
that is, O my soul: the best sound in the world,
aiming not missing its mark.

And now:
scream lava currents in volcano vents,
chirr mystery cricket in the village,
the heart of the ocean, hammering the ocean’s chest,
as long as it beats, music, we are alive,
till no plot

the land does not belong to you,
neither fame nor assurance nor success
while you lie just like Lazarus at another’s gate,
the heart may yet look into itself, like an echo in an echo,
into the immortal thing,
into the downpour, which, like love, does not stop.

Original poem copyright 2004 Olga Sedakova