Polina Barskova
Evening At Tsaskoe Selo
Akhmatova and Nedobrovo
strolling at twilight in the park,
it calls for a stage direction, say:
‘A park. September.’ He is stirred
by tittle-tattle, news from the front,
and his last article, while she
is stirred by the horizon’s slant,
the bench, grown into the ailing oak,
and an unfinished line of verse.
He says: ‘Tomorrow I shall be
at the Stray Dog. And you?’ And while
he waits for her to answer, Anna
watches her shadow glazing over,
and her clear voice utters these words:
‘This has been an unnecessary day.’
His heart beats faster. Will she? Won’t she?
But she knows all too well she won’t.
The sky casts down on everything
fragments of heavy mist, like ballast
thrown from a sly earth-bound balloon
deaf to the orders of the pilot.
Nedobrovo rips off a scarf,
it’s stifling, scratchy, out of place.
He wants to know! She doesn’t want.
Already she has the solution,
half-muttered, to that comic line,
and then, dear God, she bursts out laughing,
and night steals up and licks their shoes.
strolling at twilight in the park,
it calls for a stage direction, say:
‘A park. September.’ He is stirred
by tittle-tattle, news from the front,
and his last article, while she
is stirred by the horizon’s slant,
the bench, grown into the ailing oak,
and an unfinished line of verse.
He says: ‘Tomorrow I shall be
at the Stray Dog. And you?’ And while
he waits for her to answer, Anna
watches her shadow glazing over,
and her clear voice utters these words:
‘This has been an unnecessary day.’
His heart beats faster. Will she? Won’t she?
But she knows all too well she won’t.
The sky casts down on everything
fragments of heavy mist, like ballast
thrown from a sly earth-bound balloon
deaf to the orders of the pilot.
Nedobrovo rips off a scarf,
it’s stifling, scratchy, out of place.
He wants to know! She doesn’t want.
Already she has the solution,
half-muttered, to that comic line,
and then, dear God, she bursts out laughing,
and night steals up and licks their shoes.
Translated by Peter FranceVladimir Bolotnikov and Eric Crawford
Page(s) 30
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