скачать книгу бесплатно
Am I reflections of the world or the mirrors reflecting it?
Anastasya Shepherd
One story of this world
Begins with “Let there be light”.
I do not think that punctuation
Had been invented
When these words were first recorded.
But judging from what follows,
An exclamation mark
Should cap that sentence.
But what about Indra’s net?
What are the words
That first emitted and still carry
The light that knits it into one great whole?
What punctuation should we use?
A question mark seems most fitting.
You and I, like everybody else,
Are both:
Jewels linked into a net
And reflections bouncing within a hall of mirrors.
But let us not get trapped.
We have the power to play it
Like a game, a dance,
A laugh-inducing tickle.
2. Voyagers
Я список кораблей прочёл до середины
Осип Мадельштам
…The list Of soaring ships I’ve read up to the middle.
Osip Mandelstam (translated by Alex Sitnitsky)
Wake up! Wake up!
There is a porthole, a port, a portal,
A momentary gap
Right here,
Where the past
Meets with the future.
A dawn breeze is rising.
You can glimpse the swaying masts,
The white sails being hoisted.
You can hear the seagulls laughing,
The lines groaning, singing,
Taut with force
Ready to propel the ship.
Let us arise and cross the threshold,
Let us run
To where the land and the water
Meet.
It is for us to name the vessel,
To unfurl the flag,
To set course
Across an uncharted sea.
3. Exploration
It's a strange world,
made of echoing emptiness
pulling itself together…
Anastasya Shepherd
To blossom into being
A new world needs travelers.
Now we are here,
Calling out to each other:
“Look!”, “Did you hear that?”,
“This feels just like…”
“Watch out!”, “Where does this…”,
“Well done!” “What if?”
Now we are here,
Exploring with all our senses:
Humor, awe, dread, irony, appreciation, wonder.
When we gaze up
Celestial bodies
Flare into existence,
Dance with each other.
Flocks wing across the sky,
Swarms billow over bogs,
The air comes alive
With singing, buzzing, courting, hunting, pollinating.
Each step we take tells us
What is underneath our feet:
Grass, ice, rock,
A swaying bridge above the mist
That rises from the chasm
To cling to our ankles.
I do not know how far
We are destined to travel.
But I trust this world
To keep unfolding space and time
For our journey of exploration,
For as long as we are here.
4. Siren song
…you will come to the Sirens who enchant all who come near them.
Homer (translated by Samuel Butler)
Sirens have two kinds of songs
To lure those who come near them,
To bind the minds of travelers
With snares of longing.
Songs of adventure and of glory,
Of giving names
To new lands, to new creatures.
These songs promise freedom
From the tedium
Of familiar words,
From the confines
