The Graces and their twins the nymphs will dare

      to dance undressed.

Don’t hope for immortality. The year gives warning,

      each hour steals the day’s sweet life.

—Horace, Odes IV.7

 

But no! He may awaken

and send a ray of light from out his coffin.

—Count D. I. Khvostov, to Darya Alekseyevna Derzhavina, the 16th of July, 1816

 

I couldn’t quite compose an homage

to Count Khvostov in time for Christmas,

not as I’d meant to, not a line—

despite my hopes for Holy Week.

I’ve yet to solve this simple problem,

and no solution comes to mind.

 

The moment you take praise for granted

is the moment you become a centaur:

crooked of gait, a grim demeanor.

But I’ll not tie myself in knots,

neglecting my own obligations,

just to win Their Lordships more honor.

 

Nor shall I fly to tease my trackers,

my slender hoof held up to mark

the time I’ve spent in graceful flight:

one-two-three, two-three-four.

My restless soul still wanders across

the earthly world’s endless sights;

 

it drags my body’s heavy load,

testing the limits of where we go

into the known and unexplored.

My soul won’t sit on its hands and wait—

off by itself in its lofty world—

for the Second Coming of the Lord.

 

For that certain something I’d heard,

I wait; for a turn of fate that’s better,

a sea change or serendipity…

my memory has switched some lines

and found, stuck between the mind’s

pages, an invitation out to tea.

 

A poem that’s old is like a pie

encrusted with mold, a sour jam

that sports a furry rind.

Likewise the god of inspiration,

who’ll only shine on his chosen brood.

To others he’s wholly unkind.

 

Fear and horror: what if the dead

were reincarnated, willy-nilly?

Could we handle them all?

I see the herds stampede across

the Europes and the Americas—

they enter the Day of Judgment’s halls.

 

Jostling each other out of the way,

they move like snowstorms or squalls

that clear all paths of debris—

they’re wild and unrestrained, their screams

can scatter us all with this deafening plea:

“Don’t unembody me!”

 

“Have pity on me, Almighty! Spare me!”

“And me!” “And me! I matter too!”

they wail in unison.

The Lord is merciful and just:

he’ll only raise a chosen few,

or—even better—none.

 

None. Now that’s a shit-

ocracy. My own epic poem

traces out its funny zig-zags

as it travels its difficult path.

How nice it’d be to laze near water,

soak up the rays and just relax.

 

“Will this newfangled whispering, grumbling,

and howling ever make sense to me:

the Universe’s denizen?”

The flesh-eating Naiads shoot me glances—

they splash their vernal water coyly

and flirt in my direction.

 

Whoever’s been born has felt the pangs

of thirst or hunger more than once.

He’s been resigned to poverty.

Even in barracks or labor camps,

where all that is human is foreign,

he ponder Ovid’s poetry.

 

So don’t exert yourself to change

the native and natural order of things,

to fit today’s modish fashion.

Your like and as are wholly futile:

the dawn rose like a white angel,

the darkness fell, black as a demon.

 

I’ve lost one day and then a second

to this growing eclipse of my reason.

Where’s the answer coming from

to this question of questions?

Which thinker’s got a clear solution?

Both Fet and F. I. T. are mum.

 

(Of course: a pseudonym, initials.)

Here’s Hercules in flounces lacey—

he sits at fierce Omphale’s feet.

He’s just like Severyanin’s page-boy.

The hero spins his yarn effetely,

so dutiful, mute, and meek.

 

But with a swing of oaken club

our Hercules undoes his dovecote.

Again arrayed in lion skin,

he soon ascends the vault of heaven

to locate Hebe virginal.

Zeus’s daughter is akin

 

to widows inconsolable:

like them, she wants a husband too.

“I’m the bride, you’re my bridegroom.

You’re the bridegroom; I’m your bride.”

Further details, though, are moot.

I’ve no more time to talk, nor room.

 

We joke like this in endless cycles

but to what end? Take Jeremiah,

Thomas, or any of their kind:

they’re rich in words, but what’s their use

if thought, alas, won’t tread a path

through a reader’s unmown mind?

 

“Who is the hero of this poem?

Just me alone? Or all of us?

Whoever’s neither prince nor lout?

Whoever’s got a singular voice,

however hushed? Let generations

to follow figure it out.”

 

O Hate! Don’t climb the walls inside

fiery Gehenna’s hellish wrath!

And calm your ardor, Envy!

Spite, you shouldn’t grind your teeth.

Yes, Derzhavin has finally risen

from his grave to bless me.

 

There is no death, but there is this mess:

is it Classical or just Baroque?

The world we see and the world we seek

are linked and bound to intermingle.

Behold: my katabasia

in honor of St. Thomas Week.

 

1999-2002

translated from Russian by Derek Mong & Anne O. Fisher