Επιμέλεια: Εύα Πετροπούλου Λιανού
Olga Levadnaya is a world-famous Russian poet, Honored Worker of Culture of the Republic of Tatarstan, laureate of republican, all-Russian, international literary awards, member of republican, Russian and international literary unions, author of 16 books of poetry and prose in Russian, English, Tatar, Turkish, translated into 14 languages, author of more than 350 publications in magazines, anthologies in Russia and abroad, participant in numerous festivals, conferences, readings, Ambassador of Peace, member of the Assembly of the Peoples of Eurasia and Africa, honorary founding member of the World Day of K. Cavafy (Greece, Egypt), coordinator of the International Literary Festival in Russia “Woman in Literature” (Mexico), creator and director of the Interregional Musical and Poetic Festival “Handshake of the Republics”, International “TeleMost RR, International Youth Musical and Poetic Competition-Festival “On the Fairytale Shore of Kazanka” based on Olga’s works Levandnoy, artistic director of the Kazan poetry theater “Dialogue”.
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.
