Irina Ermakova
Lullaby for Odysseus
He speaks: My poor Penelope, my little lass,
you’ve grown so old, while I played the ass,
America is covered in ice, Europe in broken glass,
here, only here, at your feet do the living ages splash.
Dear, while you loafed about,
all got buried in clover,
with its acrid heartlike leaf, pink sticky clover,
free time’s a weave, sewn with finest clover,
I’ll make you a bitter deathless infusion of clover.
Drink, wind nails the prodigal vessels to the shore,
drink, the suitors are extinct, at sea fateful doldrums,
drink, the sons have grown, are about to undiscover America,
drink, the heavens have paled, drink, Odysseus!
Sleepy waves fawn, petals cling together like a fan,
the ends of your surfacing motherland join in a clover bowl,
enticing as the myth of fidelity, the clover spirit spreads,
drink, do not grieve, drink, my joy, my former joy.
Translated by Daniel Weissbort
Page(s) 51
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