Marina Boroditskaya
Sound Letter
Hullo, Lord!
A minor poet
is writing to You,
a voice from the choir,
a little pine tree from the forest,
a clarinet in the school orchestra.
Do You think it is so
easy, Lord,
to be a voice in the choir,
a fish in water,
and not disturb Your order?
Yet worse is the icy fate
of those appointed
first violin, or the highest
pine on the mountain.
No hardship for us,
year in year out, day after day,
to sink our roots in deeper
and practise our scales,
waiting for the conductor
spot-lit on the rostrum
to point his baton –
and a noble solo rings out
making even the mountains weep.
Translated by Ruth Fainlight
Page(s) 37-38
magazine list
- Features
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- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
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- Dream Catcher
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- French Literary Review, The
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- Global Tapestry
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- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
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- Lamport Court
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- Magma
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- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
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- North, The
- Oasis
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- Orbis
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- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
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- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
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- Poetry Salzburg Review
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- Private Tutor
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- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
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- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The