Poems by Olga Levadnaya (Russia)

WINTER

THE TRANSFIGURATION

To survive the bad

and preserve joy…

Night breaks speech

like a slender thread,

I search for a place for the night,

I go into the cold forest.

The transfigured snow

descends from the skies.

PERHAPS

Perhaps the blue evening

plaits the twigs into braids?

Perhaps the first hoarfrost

makes its marks?

Perhaps our souls can’t

have a drink in another world?

Perhaps there’s no dry land

for them to land on?

IN THE PARK

The elephants leaned their heads

to the white blossoming blackthorn.

The tracks of poplars are lit

by the moon on the run.

An icy, bottomless evening

hangs over the park…

Here’s another one with a soul,

not met by anyone.

NIGHT GONE OFF INTO THE PAST

The night going off into the past

was grey as the predawn dark.

Shadows of unrepentant trees

fragmented the houses into slight fragments.

The old trees carried off into the unknown

the usual emptiness.

It twinkled, the tiny flame of a mourning cigarette

thrown in the half-dark of the stone city.

In the closed space of shamelessness

hearts that had fed, pulsed.

The world continued to part with the past, setting light

to the innocent windows of sleeping lighthouses.

© Olga Levadnaya

Olga Levadnaya is a world-famous Russian poet, Honored Worker of Culture of the Republic of Tatarstan of the Russian Federation (2008), laureate of all-Russian and international literary awards (2007-2022), member of Russian and international literary unions (1997-2022), Ambassador of Peace (2021), artistic head of the Kazan Poetry Theater "Dialogue" (2016).

Author of books: “I live in anticipation of snow” (1992), “Go through the vicious circle” (1998), “In free fall up” (in Russian and Tatar, 2003), “Close to our past” (2003), “Rising  on the ladder of thoughts” (2005), “Memories grow from the cry of birds” (in Russian, English, Tatar and Turkish, 2005), “Stargate” (2010), “Wind of the heart” (2014), “Vocal works on verses  Olga Levadnaya" (2020), "Selected" in two volumes (2022), "Wind of the Heart" (in Russian and Tatar, India, 2022), "Wind of the Heart" (in Tatar, USA, 2022), «Turkish fairy tales» (in Russian and Turkish, Turkey, 2022).

O. Levadnaya is the creator of the music and poetry festival "Handshake of the Republics" in the Republic of Tatarstan of the Russian Federation (2017-2021).