“This dead man lies...”
«Этот человек мёртв» by Maria Galina (original here)
1.
This dead man lies
on the river bottom
white and green light
settles behind his eyes
a bridge drifts above his face
fuel smolders out in the sky
his brain a pearl
sleeping in its ornate case
In his dream
he stands mid-river
under his bed hides a catfish
a lily blooms in the hand
inverted fire
steams in the river
Placoderm
bobs in a crock
underfoot swings the bridge
past the bridge swings a forest
his time is cut short
from the first to the last stars.
2.
A fisherman will recognize
his own kind.
They pass around
a bottle of hazy mash.
Only the catfish sheathed
by a crag hears the stories they tell,
and thank God for that.
Parkas sullied with fish scales,
oil, sand,
the buoy swims in place,
the white, green, red flame burns,
one of them lights up, his hand a windbreak —
Ah fuck – he says
Who’s out there?
What’s out there?
3.
And all around blossoms a garden city,
just as it did thirty thousand years ago,
hairy ferns, Equisetums,
triceratops, Macharoidus, what else –
A man in a cloak,
speaking an extinct language.
Barefeet stand in the sand
a lily blooms in his hand.
***
The Seafarer
«Мореплаватель» by Maria Galina (original here)
Person at the door
Ah travelers, why do you seem so gloomy,
and so hesitant to board the brig, or let’s say, the warship,
when will you through the murky thoughts catch
that airy, that golden, greenish light?
1st traveler
Go home, to a sturdy table and a dish with pierogi,
a child in a crib sleeps sweetly and a weaver spins thread,
and the floors don’t swing beneath strong legs,
and there is nothing more to look or ask for.
Person at the door
Ah, I would trade in that table and that dish with pierogi —
when a soul flies into the darkness, it doesn’t need, let’s say, a table,
for the wet planks to swing underfoot
and for my sailboat to enter a wondrous distant port.
2nd traveler
Go home, to your fragmented world, unknown to us,
there a woman glows there by the hearth, like dawn,
and longing does not chase after the triangular trace,
and hungry seas will not swallow the void.
Person at the door
Why mourn when your sail is catching the wind,
and the kiss of distant stars is more tender than a woman’s,
and the water will one day become a mirror at sunrise,
where a beautiful land will rise and reflect in it.
3rd traveler
When the soul stalls in drowsy near-death,
before it bolts to the sky from the rigid deck,
it will dream of hearth and smoke, a lamb on the straw,
a child in a crib, a distant bark of a guard dog.
Person at the door
When the soul stalls in the cold bed,
before it rushes to the distant call from the window,
it will dream of the creak of a ship’s gear, and murk, where hardly
visible, the line of a long-awaited, unfamiliar shore appears.
***
The Kraken
from Tennyson
«Кракен. Из Теннисона» by Maria Galina (original here)
There, the kraken hides in bottomless water
he glows with pale light —and waits,
for the ocean to boil
(and who calls for him to surface
sits higher than kings)
Then, terrible, he will rise from the bottom,
and will dance in scarlet waves,
before the light of scarlet stars,
(torpedo bombers depart for
north-northwest)
He is the last of his kind
he eats helpless food
and his hands are white
(and he will see the Mugwort Star
among flame and ash)
He will slumber in his grave,
until they erase the thread
of the machinery of the heavenly spheres…
(there, the gypsum Pioneer
raises the trumpet to his lips)
***