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Poetry

Estuary

By Alexei Parshchikov
Translated from Russian by Wayne Chambliss

Knee deep in mud. For centuries, we have stood where the bog waters suck.
In the grasp of the inanimate,

there are no straight lines. A sack race is good for a laugh.
And like the Lord’s own trumpets, funnels multiply in the muck.

Once again, darling, yours is a resinous, intimate whisper.
Once again, I’ll bring you pelts and sprigs of heather.

But it’s all a whim of the estuary, spidering thin borders.
By dawn, it looks like a golden wand. At night, a wooden recorder.

The dragonflies and branches emanate a velvet current
into skies and loam. This isn’t a road. It’s a crossroad.

In the dead water, a bulging stretcher,
you will find no bridge, no cross, no forking path, no star.

Only a stone that looks like a cloud (both resemble
countless other points of the universe so familiar as to make one tremble).

Only the dislocation of a landscape, sagging like a deflated ball.
Only a hole in the ground, or the lack of a hole.

English

Knee deep in mud. For centuries, we have stood where the bog waters suck.
In the grasp of the inanimate,

there are no straight lines. A sack race is good for a laugh.
And like the Lord’s own trumpets, funnels multiply in the muck.

Once again, darling, yours is a resinous, intimate whisper.
Once again, I’ll bring you pelts and sprigs of heather.

But it’s all a whim of the estuary, spidering thin borders.
By dawn, it looks like a golden wand. At night, a wooden recorder.

The dragonflies and branches emanate a velvet current
into skies and loam. This isn’t a road. It’s a crossroad.

In the dead water, a bulging stretcher,
you will find no bridge, no cross, no forking path, no star.

Only a stone that looks like a cloud (both resemble
countless other points of the universe so familiar as to make one tremble).

Only the dislocation of a landscape, sagging like a deflated ball.
Only a hole in the ground, or the lack of a hole.

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