Eldar Akhadov poems

 CORNFLOWER SKY

 

The sky flies from everywhere—flying to meet the earth.

And the earth flies, embraced by the sky, pierced through with its light.

And the cornflower-blue sky shines in the eyes of newborn infants of the earth!

And the infantile sky rocks on the azure wind.

On the gentle, blue, penetrating, cradle-like wind…

And it carries, it streams light in its weightless palm, the blue clay of the earth,

the blue-eyed sky of infants, the diamond water of life.

And there is no longer light, nor darkness, nor earth, nor sky, nor sound, nor silence—everything is one.

Everything is eternal.

Everything—God. Everything—love. Everything—life.

 

SNOW FLAME

 

Flickering snow, a false flame bright:

Now unfurls on wind like a banner’s might,

Now twists in spirals trembling tight,

As if morality was read aright…

It quiets, settles, wakes anew,

Snow dust sparkling in sunlight’s hue,

Blowing frost from the branches’ view…

It flares with wind, then vanishes in the snow.

 

 

KHIUS

 

Like a fish, numb, it darts about

The home, a frozen, hunched winter's day.

Khious ruffles, worried, doubts throughout:

Is all snow drifted, swept away?

Where doves once wandered, snow now steams.

Enrolled as sweepers to winter’s storm,

It strives to please, stretches after,

Like a pilgrim in a temple, praying to the form.

But the old one hears not a word,

And in wild snow, the lamps lament unheard.

 

 

SNOW PIERCED THE ALLEYS

 

Snow pierced the alleys

And streamed upon the wind,

Settling on rough knees

By morning thinned.

And, recalling with an eye,

Kept whispering, like a man…

Frozen ice shavings

On the pale edges of lids.

And in a prayerful bow

A grey expanse floated above

Into the whitened palms

Of freezing lakes below.

 

SWANS

 

Bidding the Baydaratsk tundra goodbye

And the wondrous Antipayuta too,

Through the sky with a soldierly line they fly—

The swan formation passes through.

Like a string of pearls from tundra wide—

Already over India they soar,

And shaggy-footed little birds hide

In the bushes, watching them from shore.

Children of the eternal expanse—

In all lands they can be seen…

The Pendomayakh lakes

Haunt their dreams until spring’s green.

 

 

LEMMING

A curious fluffy ball,

Barely hiding in a snowdrift’s fold,

He hears how loudly the owl laughs

Across the polar field, so cold.

Not a knight in armour and helm,

Nor proud and fierce dragon grim—

The tiny, lucky lemming

Peeks from the snow, its eyes dim.

His small teeth are strong,

And his burrow won’t last long…

Snowshoes pass above it,

And arctic foxes bark till dawn…

But in that heart abides so deep

A mockery of death so sly,

When from the cliff, like a bird’s leap,

The lemming plunges into the tide high!

 

AWAY FROM THE DRILL’S GLEAM

Away from the gleam of drills—

Almost like Christmas trees, agleam,

Amid the tundra’s vast fields

The path of chorea is thorned and long, it seems.

The world is bound in a snow-veil tight,

But beneath the shimmering ice

The river is pregnant with water,

The earth with flowers, a paradise.

 

THE FIRST SNOW

 

At the hour when from frozen still,

Appear the speckled glimmers bright:

Good, bad, and any will,

Before the first snow, all is right.

Here shuffles granny by the wall,

Here, careless tails a dog will guide,

Rejoicing in each flake that falls:

Before the first snow, all is wide.

All equal… naïve and small,

The vanished night’s fears gone away…

And Sunday comes to crown it all:

Before the first snow, all obey.

Nothing counts: no guilt, no fame,

No tracks beneath the steady snow,

No one’s flight has yet broken, claim—

Before the first snow, all is so.

 

SNOW AND SAND

 

With shifts to north or south’s command—

Snow and sand level all on earth:

A foe is not a foe, a friend not a friend,

And corners vanish, all rejoice in mirth.

And so it flows in heat and freezing strand—

Through time confined inside a home’s girth:

Snow, like glassy sand upon the wind,

Sand, like snow, sparkles bright in hand.

 

THE HERMIT OF URENGOY

 

Every day for me is Monday.

No one else can understand it…

Here I am—the Urengoy hermit

Amid frozen, roughened bogs:

Along cold polar drifts

On starry nights, I stumble home from work,

Overtaken by the fierce wind,

Slipping now and then on ice…

Truly, few people here,

And frosts half the year are harsh,

From the lack of sharp northern air

Men sleepwalk constantly.

Wherever I’ve been in the past,

I’ve seen nothing like this:

Polar low sky,

Snowy distance veiled…

No need for glory or money:

Winds blow everything through.

And again, the Urengoy hermit

Remembers loved ones till morning…

 

 

HELICOPTER

 

The helicopter cuts through the air.

We fly forward on it.

The sky tears like satin fair.

The world stands still. And we fly on it.

The clouds smell like snow.

Beneath the ice, the river stirs.

And above it, the ice will glow.

The helicopter cuts through the air.

Thunder lashes from all around,

While the neighbour dreams of home,

And behind the house, a bright garden is found.

And the neighbour flies backwards, alone.

Thunder roars. The earth drifts away.

The helicopter cuts through the air.

Ahead, a boundless expanse:

Rapture and delight!

Both in dream and in flesh,

And nowhere — the path ends in sight!..

…Or — is it all the opposite?

The helicopter cuts through the air.

Shreds of sky behind our backs

Fall upon the earthly globe.

 

 TRACK

 

Grey, deserted, endless lands.

Peace enwrapped in snow’s embrace.

To reach a track, to reach the fire —

Hope is barely in place.

Yet miracles sometimes occur:

Like a northern light ablaze,

Suddenly, from nowhere, a stir —

A human track in the snow displays.

And the wild blizzard hides,

Fading in frost’s smoky hue…

Who was there, and where they are — I don’t know,

But happiness, I wish for them too.

 

NINE LIVES

Nine lives trail behind my own —

Lives of those who follow, alone.

Whatever happens along the way,

I must not think of failing, no way.

Neither to fall, nor cry “I can’t!”

Nor bury myself somewhere in snow,

Nor say “I am spent, my friends” —

All may do this, but I must not so.

I must not: through snow they go

Nine lives, nine people, following my flow.

And if my strength should utterly fail,

One prayer to God I’d entreat:

That amid wind and winter’s breath

He lends them to me, but not for long,

So that nine lives, believing in me,

May reach home and fire strong.

 

JUNE NIGHT IN THE FAR NORTH

 

The night’s dawn draped in a saffron veil,

June’s ever-bright, unfading summer…

On the walls, caustic light does quail,

The winding river gleams in the distance.

The sky’s radiance knows no end.

Only the wind breathes freshness of repose,

And in clouds above the river bend

Lemon light and peach light softly flow.

 

WET SNOW

 

Rain, like a blind one, feels the face:

It seeks those who walked the way before…

It knows the time has come to cease,

For there is nowhere left to go, no more.

Soon a moment comes, like a word gone numb,

By which a loving soul once lived.

All is gone, will never come again,

No more rain—and snow cries, grief-shriv’d…

 

 THE WIND

 

It trembled in my hand like flame,

Fluttered over snow and stream,

Touched tenderly with lips that claim

The birch leaves in young sunbeam.

It whirled in sky with rapture deep,

Wound through fox dens’ secret ways,

And burned with a single touch to keep

The grey shoulders of ancient days…

Tireless as a she-wolf, free,

Invisible, like a night beast,

Now it knocks at the window, see,

And howls in the door’s small crease.

Wherever you hide—it’s always near,

In any distance, any land:

It gazes with a bottomless stare

And seeks entrance to your soul, unmanned.

 

IN MEMORY OF A SURVEYOR

 

Neither on white earth, nor on black,

Neither in reality, nor in a dream,

Will you, beneath the sky so vast,

Ever appear to me again…

Your departure was bold and sudden:

Your heart simply turned to ice.

“Endure, I will carry you, master!” —

The stubborn snowmobile roared.

And it howled, drowning the blizzard,

As if calling from afar,

And circled, circled, circled around

The living rider an hour ago…

Hey, wake! Look: in the dark and snow

Half the earth seems to have stepped,

Your colleagues came after you!

Comrades have come for you!..

In the winter tundra is cold and dim,

But where triumph of light glows,

The surveyor is carried on the hands

By brothers in his immortality.

 

ON SEVEN WINDS

 

Dispersing fragments of the haze,

To Baikal from the icy height

The winds of Hamar-Daban race:

Kultuk, Shelonnik, Barguzin — in flight.

Then one remains, both sad and proud,

Like the monarch of the mountain crest,

The long-day hius, chanting loud,

Flows down to Angara’s breast,

To vanish near Yenisei’s stream

When springtime loosens every chain,

Where halias flap and circle, gleam —

As if some paradise unearthly reign.

And thus, with flakes that flare and fade,

The humid, cloudy net above

Again, my memory’s cord has laid

And pulled lost toys I used to love:

A bus clutched tight within a hand,

Shell-sanded shores, the sea’s clear tear,

No matter whence such dust and strand —

Your sacred gift I hold so dear:

Khamsin, sharav, samum and bora,

Sarma, Khazri, and Gilavar —

Each one a breath of ancient aura,

Each one my heart’s familiar star.

 

THE EARTH’S ROTATION

 

I feel the Earth’s rotation spin,

When leaning back against its form,

At the sky entirely unearthly in,

And clouds like flowing feathered storm…

The movement of scents and stars,

And dances of the blizzards’ play,

And herons’ mating dances far—

Lives in me as though I were transparent, I say.

As if extending down and up,

I became both darkness, light, and peace,

And, dissolving in the bell-like sky cup,

I live in all, with all, for all’s release.