A moongate in my wall: собрание стихотворений

Визи Мария Генриховна

552. «It was a lazy summer noon, as I sat in the stern of a flat-bottomed boat…» [246]

The blue parasol may have been becoming.

I do not know; I hope it was.

It was a lazy summer noon, as I sat in the stern of a flat-bottomed boat, holding a blue parasol over my head and back. My boatman rowed unhurriedly through the rushes, the tall rushes crowding a narrow stream across the Sung-Hwa-kiang. I sat enjoying the blue of the sky, the gold of the sun, the green of the grass and the ripples, and I did not know whether I was pretty or not, in my light summer gown, against my light blue parasol — I did not know whether I wras pretty or not, I had not expected to meet you rowing towards me, swiftly slicing the rushes with the sharp prow of your boat, as you returned from your early morning fishing.

246

Variant in the second line of the last stanza in the manuscript:

«swiftly dividing the rushes with the sharp prow of your boat.» Sun-Hwa-kiang: Songhuajiang in the contemporary transcription, the Sungari River; see note on poem 327.

553. «He was a shepherd and he spent his hours…» [247]

A person encountered in the Western I lills near

Beitsing

He was a shepherd and he spent his hours upon a hillside taking care of sheep. He slept in his small hut of mud and straw and ate his rice and sometimes drank his tea. His hands were gnarled and grimy and his clothes he hardly ever changed from month to month for he was one of the unwashed who lived so many li from rivers or a spring. In early morning, when some stranger chanced, dangling his dusty legs, on donkey back to pass his hut, the friendly shepherd called by way of greeting, — «Have you had your rice?»

247

For the Western Hills see note on poem 471. «Have you had your rice?» i.e., «Have you eaten?» is a traditional polite enquiry in China.

554. «At daybreak, as the skies lighten…»

Early morning in Beitsing: a sound fondly recalled.

At daybreak, as the skies lighten, I roll up my window and listen to my city. The summer heat has not yet choked the perfumed breath of night; the dust in the street lies unwaken by pattering feet, but the jingle of peddlers' wares begins to reach my ears, and then, what I await: the whistling pigeon in the sky above Beitsing.

555. «When I was small I had a great vain dream…» [248]

Only the waters of the Ch'in and Wei

Roll green and changeless, as in years

gone by.

Po Chu-i

When I was small I had a great vain dream, a kind of game just with myself alone: because the fathers of my little playmates were wrapped far more than mine in worldly riches, I played that one fine day I would invite them to my poor shabby door and they would knock and through that creaking door in that grey alley, awestruck, would tiptoe into sparkling halls bedecked with wealth and of surpassing beauty. This never happened, nor did I regret it for still they came, and still we played together. Now years have passed and we have ail been scattered. And all these many years I have been toiling and have it seems at last built quite a palace behind that gate, and have assembled in it great wealth and beauty far belittling those which once I dreamed of as a foolish child; — So much to show, with humble pride and grateful, to share and to enjoy, if they would knock upon my gate, those small remembered playmates… But I can hear the echo of their footsteps running, then silenced far down winding alleys, and in the myriad distant streets and cities they cannot find the gateway to my house.

248

For Po Chu — yi see note on poem 527. The epigraph is taken from Bo Juyi's poem «Night Stop at Rongyang».

556. «The temple halls are musty; daylight never…» [249]

Om mani pad me kum.

The temple halls are musty; daylight never disturbs the corridors or narrow stairs. Blackened by dust and incense smoke and years the ancient tapestries along the walls from high carved vaulted ceiling to the floor breathe not a ripple in the stifled air. When nightfall stills the last long wailing chant and joss smoke mingles with the stale burnt oil, then once again the tapestries awake with rats that live behind them, galloping, galloping all night long, like a division of cavalry on a parade, or rushing to mortal combat with an enemy.

249

Om mani pad me kum: a meditation mantra.

557. «We had walked many li over the flat autumn fields…» [250]

A winter storm starts suddenly over

lake Hanka.

We had walked many li over the flat autumn fields and had reached the marshes skirting the great lake. Wild fowl were flying all over under a blackening sky and settling down urgently among the clumps of grass seeking a refuge. The vast expanse of lake was before us, with nothing but tall grass growing profusely as far as the eye could see on all sides and behind us; grass swaying like a continuation of the lake surface. Suddenly, without warning, a sheet of wet white flakes fell from the sky, and more followed, and more, hurrying, swirling and joining the wind and the grass in their frightening dance. A storm.

250

Lake Hanka is a lake in the maritime Far East, on the border of Russia and China.

558. «Swathed in its lace of slime…»

Swathed in its lace of slime, the pond sleeps at sunset. High above the adobe hut and the boat landing rises a sharp-horned yellow moon. What a comforting and pleasing lot — Who can say fate is unkind? The delicate filigree of willow' leaves is black against the violet evening sky.

559. «Early snow falls…»

Early snow falls, like wafted cherry blossoms — peaceful and lazy — into the pond, the green one, where willows drop and late water lilies are blooming. There could not be a brighter or a larger star than the one climbing the partly darkening sky, and hesitating over the edge of the pensive village.

560. «San Shu was a boatman. He lived on an island…»

San Shu was a boatman. He lived on an island in the middle of the great Sung-Hwa river, in the north. He rowed his flat-bottomed boat very skillfully across the wide yellow grey expanse from the shore of the city to the grassy flatlands on the other side, where lay the villages and the farms. The Sung-Hwa was a pleasant sunny stream and it earned the boatman's bread all summer.

561. «From the direction of Mai Mai Cheng…» [251]

From the direction of Mai Mai Cheng, rising over the Gobi desert, across the Great Wall, came a wind. It picked up the sands of the desert and became thick and brown as the sands themselves, as it hurled its destructive phalanges into battle, row upon powerful row. I got up in the morning with a brown blanket about me brown sand in my eyes and ears and gritting between my teeth and but a white spot on the bed where my head had rested. But many centuries this Gobi wind has blown covering with its sands myriad human bones and ancient dwellings. Some far-off day a child, playing in the swift sand, will take a beautiful polished white bone that will have been me, and will take it to her father, to make her a flute, to sing a song.

251

Mai Mai Cheng: the Chinese city of Maimaicheng and the adjacent Russian city of Kiаikhtа were centres of Sino-Russian trade in the 18th and 19th centuries.