By Joseph A. Brodsky

The English Translation, by Anna Polibina-Polansky

A Paisage with a Flood

It is quite a regular paisage visibly improved by the flood.

Chapels, the heads of trees, and domes are all to be seen.

I mean to utter something, and I get strangled in axiety, but

Out of phrases, there is left one, "that was, that have been".

So the bald head and grey eye-brows can be seen at a mirror.

Neither face nor fucking system is truly undermeant.

The oral - the written are vapory, vague, out of spirit.

Upside is the torn cloud; beneath you at water, do stand.

Wet Holland, before dambs and laces, de Frizes and van Deiks...

Or, say, Asian tropics in rains, but you are no rice in the soil.

By a drop, collected for a year or perhaps for a day,

At the salty ground, you see: baby is crooked at the periscope (or up coiled).

The embryo makes out the foe's fuming steams, and the sea is up boiled.

Tr. 2020