Επιμέλεια: Εύα Πετροπούλου Λιανού
LOVING AS ONLY A WOMAN CAN
It’s as though I am running on a deserted platform, trying to catch up with the train of the grown up life of my son that is gathering headlong speed. How the twenty years flew by unnoticed. Who will he become? Will he find a teacher for himself. Will he worthily continue what he studies?
I try to grasp if I have done everything for my son? Have I laid the foundation in his soul for his development as a man in the future? He still can’t guess how much and with what difficulties he will have to work on himself; to perfect his soul, to refuse worldly happiness. But that’s not the main thing.
Only I can guess at what will be the main thing in his future. The thing is that my son is cleverer than me just with his life. He has already adapted to the modern conditions of our life, whereas I live with nostalgia for the past life. His generation does not look back. He lives in the future!
Nonetheless, I pray to God to look after him when I am gone, when the chorus of birds will be heard far over the horizon of my desires, when Adam and Eve, having discovered the Great Secrets of Unity of nature will give to the World a godlike MAN…
How much
has changed in us.
The streets are more alarming.
I hang out the children’s whites
on the slender, new line,
prepare dinner,
tidy the house…
But really
I’m dreaming this up.
How much
has changed in us!
JOY
You are the stone –
I am the cherry.
You are the twig –
I the tree.
You are the drop –
I the cloud.
You are joy –
and I am – Mama.
I live half a pace from truces,
not recanting, not pitying, not loving.
I draw a childish profile on paper,
like two drops, like you.
Grief gradually recedes.
I think of the future, of Him….
and the cold evening drifts into sleep
on the boundless window…
We’re still together, the two of us…
LULLABY
I grew out of
getting tired long ago.
I continuously rock,
rock
the little bed.
Like a firebird
I don’t sleep midnights.
I hurry winged
sleep to you.
Close your wise
little eyes.
Sleep, little one,
lullaby.
A ale blue dream
will come to you.
Sleep, my boy,
I’m here with you.
MORNING
The spring day
appeared in the world again.
But the first lilac
is still dozing.
The soaked evening
knocked at the window.
Sadness and darkness
in the room.
We lay silent
in the dark
and someone’s shadow
trembled on the wall…
My son
can’t speak yet, but I
know everything
he asks me.
EVENING AT THE WINDOW
I go wordless on tiptoes
by the child’s little bed.
Silence hangs on frail threads.
… I stand emptied out at the station,
recalling hazily
how they didn’t recognise me on meeting…
It’s cold, uncomfortable.
PREMONITION
The bird circled fearfully
over the piercing silence.
The whites hung on the line don’t sleep,
the sheets smell in the early spring.
Carefree ness still lives in the house,
the peacefulness has bored you…
And the duty-driver has driven
the night goods train into eternity.
TO MY SON
I carried you in me
and then in my arms.
But I was not in charge of him –
but pushed him away fierily.
You most probably will remember
little about me…
How easily I caressed you,
but lived – privately.
JOY
My eyelids have not grown old yet
from my future dreams.
It seems that forever
I’ll share everything for two.
There’s just joy in this,
although I don’t rate it.
The moon decorates my fence
on parents’ day.
My migratory happiness,
where are you wandering to without me?
I wait for empathy, participation,
not blaming anyone for anything.
I dream, suffer, grow old,
I remember good and not evil.
And while I’m not weak,
I’ll wait for warmth from you.
ON THE ROAD
I look dispassionately at the landscape, sliding
over the slender surface of the autumn glass.
I can’t survive the pain that’ll come
without human warmth and happiness.
I slowly cross the borders,
losing myself in boundlessness.
I wait for a dream of my son,
loving, as only a woman can!
EXCHANGE
I’ll still warm myself
where there’ll be no walls.
I still hope
to search out the exchange.
To exchange for pain
in this world’s bustle,
so you could live
with love, and me with anguish…
TO MY SON
Birds’ clouds
somehow saddened.
I pass the farewell
muteness of the line.
I do not value
my loneliness.
I cast spells to my son
of light prophecies.
My beloved son,
yours will return to you.
Life is an island, on which
it’s so simple to get lost.
If it’ll be difficult
let the Almighty protect you!
Timelessness – then from where
does autumn come into the city?
FROM THE RIB
From now on to live in oneself
where the highest reward is God and Faith.
And every moment on earth
to equate with the divine word.
Where all is united, all is in me alone
and I alone am the preserver of the World.
But I am just from the rib,
from the mother’s essence and the universe.
Like a bridge, reflected on the river
my life floats towards the ocean.
And I, not gazing at the pain
unite two shores.
And if I succeed in finding
a helper among the close ones,
the I will ask Fate,
let him be my son.
How difficult it is to cross
the road of happiness,
how difficult it is for me
not to be held up in it.
I’ll become a friend
for my son and Fate
and not cross,
and to grow on this road.
I dream to find
a stream on the road,
where our success
splashes
and a roof for the night,
where happiness lives
and a garden where
money grows.
And if even more
I get a lucky break,
then I’ll have a rowboat
of bird song.
The ivy twined
in the slender twigs
of the apple tree of desires.
The green eyes of the cat
penetrated the dark,
filled with bird songs.
The first seed had not
appeared and I am already afraid that I
won’t gather the harvest of apples of paradise.
I don’t hurry away,
ahead is the unknown.
Over the crown of the apple tree of sadness
a rainbow appeared
after the rain.
The flabby bark of the tree
gathered in its wrinkles.
The twigs streamed
to meet the midday
sun,
and a ringing necklace of birds
shuddered
at every blowing of the wind.
Their polyphony
would be heard
from over the horizon
of my desires.
Smoke
drifted
from the neighbouring garden.
Adam and Eve
flooded the bath house.
Olga Levadnaya russian poet-visionary with world renown, 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 of numerous festivals, conferences, readings, Ambassador of Peace, European Poetry, poetry of International literature ACC Shanghai Huifeng (Shanghai, Huifeng), Member of the Assembly of the Peoples of Eurasia and Africa, Department of Arts and Cultures, Plenipotentiary Representative for Culture in Russia of the Republic of Birland (Africa), literary consultant of the Shanxi Academy of Literature, Science, Technology, Zhongshan Community of Poets (China), Honorary founding member of the World Day of K. Kavafisa (Greece, Egypt), coordinator of the International Literary Festival in Russia “Woman in Literature” (Mexico), creator and head of the Interregional Music and Poetry Festival “Handshake of the Republics”, the International Teleconference of the Republic of Moldova, the International Youth Music and Poetry Competition-Festival “On the Fabulous Shore of Kazanka” based on the works of Olga Levadna, artistic director Kazan poetic theater “Dialogue”.
