Deeblog

A reflection on sweet memories ("To look at you so saddens me") by one of Russia's most beloved poets, also famous for having been the husband of this dancer and entertainer.  The original poem can be found here.

To look at you so saddens me:
What pain! What pity!  For I know
We’ve but the copper willow tree
In this September left to show.

Another’s lips have come to feel
Your warmth and bodily convulse,
As if soft rain were to reveal
A heart deprived of mortal pulse.

But anyway, I fear him not,
Another joy has since obtained.
You see, everything that remained
Is only damp and yellowed rot. 

Myself I never had preserved
For peaceful life, much less for smiles.
I’ve walked already so few miles,
By so many mistakes unnerved.

Life’s laughable in its off–tones
So it has been, so it will stay:
A cemetery, as gnawed bones
Of birch tree in a garden lay.

So this is how we wither, fade,
And quell our noise like garden guests.
If winter flowers so forbade,
For them one then should not distress.