Навіщо. What For

***

Quite some time ago I came across a poet,

A professional, like revolutionaries.

He sat on the steps and crumpled paper,

And he wrote something on the newspaper margins.

And I thought this would be a funny joke

While going past him, just by chance, out of nothing,

To put all his sufferings into rhymes,

As I do rhyme very easily...

He looked at me from beneath

As if a goddess climbed the steps,

He took rhymes in his lips, as if they were strawberries,

And he closed his eyes for they were so tasty.

He finally asked what my name was.

I told him and sped off on my way,

For your body is light after rhyming,

And poets do not become me at all.

Thirty years have passed since then,

Occasional people rubbed me with their words,

And when something was aired about verses

That there's something in them not from this world

And no one knows where they come from,

My husband told me that one of his friends

While in the second year of studies at the Literature Institute

Had a vision of Muse Mary in broad daylight

And she satisfied him there on the stairway.

He was waiting for her later, dreaming about her, he was calling for her.

But nobody ever believed him.

I was struck dumb for a moment in my amazement

But when I wanted to tell the story

He told me that the friend died last summer.

24 May 2014