Olga Levadnaya

AUTUMN        

MEMORIES GROW OUT

OF THE CRIES OF BIRDS

I love white-faced Kazan,

whose feet

are washed by life-giving waters,

a Kremlin kissed by snow

still fragrant with autumn foliage

and the proliferation of the squares

like passionate farewells,

and the freckled houses

under the manes of silver poplars,

and the devout luminescence

of city streetlamps,

and people 

grandly carrying their past

and the cries of birds

from which grow –

our memories.

THE DIVINE BREATHING 

OF MEMORIES

Today we didn’t think of anything bad.

Life seemed to be easier and longer for us…

No one shared sin with themselves,

no one spared the days that flew by.

I heard voices of the past,

the river impetuously rushed into the distance

and the heavens breathed in slowly

the clouds, cold as pieces of ice.

REVELATIONS 

OF SAINT EVDOKIA

Once more Saint Evdokia

cries over the Kazan river.

Her worldly intentions

are hidden in the half-dark.

The lonely wind repeats

 and the autumn warmth

 like ash from poplars

 finds no salvation.

COME INTO MY HEART!

There’s a rowan in my garden, but it’s a strange one,

between us is the road and Fate.

But I planted it and it did not

share with us the warmth in November.

But somehow I tamed it,

fed it with a glance and cherished it in dreams.

And suddenly it came to from its sadness

and paced quickly up to my porch.

LEAF FALL 

OF A PERFECT AUTUMN

The branches rocked coldly

their weakened leaves

and knocked at the neighbours’ windows

with their hands trembling from cold.

The abandoned little court-yard

dozed on the outskirts of summer.

The autumn caretaker, lost in thought,

swept the streets before dawn.

RETURN TO WAKING

The platform dozed in the chilled blue.

A shadow wandered on slender legs.

The carriage left in the blind siding

was rocked by all the winds.

Lonely snow was hastening

to leave tracks on the soaked earth.

A man was going off somewhere urgently.

OLD FLAT

The same old flat

with a sleepy door in the hall,

with timid steps of light,

soaked in the rainy midday.

The same old flat

and the damp wallpaper

and the wind with slender arms

blows through the cracks behind the blind.

The same old flat,

in which I once lived,

in which I’ll live again,

in which I’ll never once die.

SECRET BREATH OF JOY

The restless stone

on my pathless breast

rested from excessive labour.

The sky blushed

like lips from a kiss.

The drowsy forest

fanned out an autumn peacock’s tail.

The child of my future

stirred within me.

NEWBORN HAPPINESS

I muddle the track in the new constructions

like a blind foal in the dawn forest.

Night squeezes its engagement ring

into small change.

On the fabled back of the Kazan river

the Kremlin has opened up like a pink lotus.

Newborn happiness

flows its petals down like a teardrop of joy.

Ahead there are indistinguishable silhouettes

of man and a woman –

soaked leaves 

of one tree.

Olga Levadnaya