War of the Beasts and the Animals

Kireevsky

1

The light swells and pulses at the garden gate

Rolls itself up, rolls itself out

Smetana, the very best – open up, mamma

Sweet lady, unlatching a casement – the best and the finest!

O black-throated Smetana, flame up

O white-winged Smetana, flare high

I’m no Lenten gruel, no scourge of sultanas

No faceless soup of curds for convicts

Don’t you dare compare my cream of ermine!

Are you pleased with a simple-minded cheese?

As the land rises and falls in hills and valleys

I’m shaped in living lipids and calories

Congealed unconcealed made gloriously manifest

Turned from one side to another and back again

Who will take up a silver spoon to muddy

My lilac-hued body?

And you, my light, barely at the threshold

Little fool, my light, never where I need you

You effulgent, I gently melting

I gently melting, I slightly smelling

And down there, where life rustles in the undergrowth

A tiny frog sits and croaks

Swells and croaks. Croaks and swells

And lifts its front legs to protect itself.

Smetana is Russian sour cream

2

In the village, in the field, in the forest

A coach rattled past, a carriage

A smart little trap with a hood like a wing

From the big city they came, from Kazan,

At the turning of the year, with caskets and coffers

To carry out an inspection, a census:

Oh the forest is full of souls, and the water’s flow,

Many souls in the hamlet, and in the oak tree, too

And day wanders the wood, walking into the wind

All its own self long, on the spoor of the hind.

And the circles of dancers – still traces in the ground

The lips of hired weepers – not yet shrivelled

And all of it, even the young Cleïs,

Recorded in the book of conscience

And behind the gilded crest stamped on the boards

They barely dare to scratch or burp.

3

Tear tears along, chasing tear, and kicks it

When it’s down: Turn the other cheek, tear!

I’m trailing you, I’m on your track,

Blinking at you like a lighted spill

Making the walls reel, like a lighted match.

Tease me, tear, you madcap

Be my healer:

You, my little book, me your reader.

Tear answers tear:

Nivermore, tear, rest you nighwhere

Beyond the hermit’s lonely rock-fault

I will return to you as rocksalt.

4

My lady neighbour drives out on black sables

Riding hood laughing, her mittens speak in riddles

Three fields she passed, and the fourth a rise,

Into the yard like thunder she rides.

Her neighbour sits stunned – hey, neighbour, budge up

Not often a vixen comes to sup!

Offer her honey in the bowl of your paw

Put her to bed on the bench in the warmth.

She will then set up such a howling:

The master’s right burns bright as a barn

A mother’s caress is still as a millpond

And if you thirst and drop your snout down in

A pail, there’s not enough water to drink or to drown in

5

Where the dance was shaped in flame:

Stand away – you’ll see it’s still burning now

Flames without heat, fire without sense, inextinguishable

Steps marked in distinct and crooked letters.

What whined in the air, is still singing now

Tugging at roots, squeaking loose threads.

The pools make their round sound, release no bubbles

The road is asleep, neither trembles nor moans.

Beyond the third poplar, day is falling

Beyond the fifth poplar, the shadow falls away.

Beyond the fifth poplar the soul flees away,

Beyond the third poplar there’s no point searching.

The wreath won’t hang for long in the house,

Look in the mirror, already your hair is sparse.

6

Chorus line, on our feet

On our legs, our dancing legs:

In dyed stocking

In borrowed stockings.

We’ll dance our lithe line

To the shore of the blue blue sea

And knock, and you’ll draw your waves

Apart, expose your flats

And we’ll sing the refrain:

We come at a price

Pay in watery gruel, a coralline ear

And beaten coins of gold!

We’ll sing below the waves (and the sea rolls on the shore)

We’ll sing the miller’s song (and the foam white as flour)

We’ll sing of the laundrymaid (and the waves wash us through)

We’ll sing of service (and the soldiers stand tall).

Sleep in on a Saturday

Breathe in on a Sunday

Young beauty is washed from your face

A scattering of snow on your foolish bobbed head.

And the sea sighs and beats its hooves

Won’t come to the shore, won’t pay its dues.

7

You my gifts, o my gifts

Thin white linen sheets

Over whom will I throw you

Entrust you to whom?

My friend has no pillow under her head

She sleeps in a stream

My little mother

Runs away down the track

She takes nothing with her

She doesn’t look back.

My own brother

Can’t hide himself in the field.

I’m no mistress, me

Nor cattle, nor kettle.

The giftgiver asks no questions

Says nothing, suggests nothing,

Thunders and rolls

Over the dirt road

Dark firs are cut to masts

And above their rustling tips

He walks, leaning on their light trunks.

8

Who guards our picket fences, our blooming hedges?

Friar Pan and Into-the-Fire are vying with each other.

Into-the-Fire has six flaming fingers, see them and shiver

And Friar Pan takes off his sooty frock, stands shaggy as a goat.

Higher, higher place the roof, praise the new roof

Shacks and wattle walls, daub and dug out, logs for cabins

Give us up, gather us up, give us a sign –

We’ll show you, we’ll bow to you, we’ll pay our way:

With starry-eyed blackberries, blue-lipped bilberries

Sharp-blue magpie feathers and hazelnuts,

With marbled water like an old man’s beard

With the black ploughed furrow, our lives’ work.

9

A deer, a deer stood in that place

Under the nut tree

And tears ran down its coat

Blood smoked on the snow.

A deer, a deer stood in that place

Under the nut tree

And rocked, rocked gently

The empty cradle.

A deer, a deer stood in that place

Asking the endless question

And from beyond the seven seas

Carried the wails of a child.

I wandered the yards, I glanced in the windows

I searched for a child I could raise myself

Choose myself a little babby

Maybe a girl or a little laddy

I’d feed my child the purest sugar

Teach it to lace and embroider

Take it for strolls under my pinny

Sing sweet songs to my own little sonny.

But they cast me out, they came at me

With torches and pitchforks they drove me

Your own foolish mothers and fathers!

And you will wander snot-nosed for years

Angering strangers, lost and derided

Without the muzzle-scent of tears

Never knowing your own true tribe.

10

The last songs are assembling,

Soldiers of a ghostly front:

Escaping from surrounded places

A refrain or two make a break for it

Appearing at the rendez-vous

Looking about them, like the hunted.

How stiffly unbending they are

Running water won’t soften them now!

How unused they are to company

The words don’t form as they ought.

But their elderly, skilful hands

Pass the cartridges round,

And until first light their seeing fingers

Reassemble Kalashnikovs,

They draw, with sharp intake of breath

From wounds, the deeply lodged letters –

And towards morning, avoiding checkpoints,

They enter the sleepless city.

In times of war, they fall silent.

When the muses roar, they fall silent.