By Joseph A. Brodsky

The English Poetic Renditions, by Anna A. Polibina-Polansky

*** ("Voskhodyaschee zhyoltoe solntse sledit kosymi...")

The ascending sun casts orange shades, followed by

The eyes aslant, the masts of the naked ticket.

So the Baptismal frost is ahead, and the wintry peak spies

For the Japanese war's waves, severe and wicked.

Oh, the round-Earth navigation ought to be ended up.

Bend your hand in the elbow.

Burn away the dreadnote, in the chimney-place; delve it now.

Forget of Tsusima. The flame, to the wintry secrets, is bent, yet.

Only golden horses of no girdle

Become iron-black when at the chimney, as some easy burden.

So a huge naked cricket is rattling inside the twilight.

It can't be covered with just a palm, like pupils, with eyelids.

1978/ tr. 2020

*** A Swedish Tune. To K.Kh.

("Kogda sneg zametaet morye i skrip sosny...")

By the snow, the sea is whipped up, and a squeaking pine-tree

Leaves traces in the air, deeper than sleighs do, and whiter

Gets the heaven. To what profound silence

May get the careless voice? The outer, disappears 'hind the eyelids.

The world kepps the face, as its hostage; it enacts wrinkles, in violence.

So the conch phosphorized is shining, from pink to violet,

At the bottom of oceans. The silence keeps the speed of a sound.

A match is enough to burn an oven to flame, all around.

So the pendulum reminds a beating heart, likewise before.

When it stops, the heart is yet stirring like waves, over that shore.

1975/tr. 2020