Melancholy

The evening is stifling. Night is not far off.
You have withdrawn in silence…
As if being poured — a river is flowing without end,
and all around, not a murmur, only calm.

Come to where twilight is meek,
tabletop and open notebook…
The cricket’s little tune is long, tiresome,
and the maiden bed, untouched.

Stoop in pained search
along the tracery of scrawled lines,
and at weary, affectionate touch
pour out your heart in timorous stream.

Far away — do you hear — the bell is ringing
at unseemly and dangerous hour…
The darkness beckons, the dark dead vale,
it calls and has called more than once…

You are alone. Your bedding whitens with cold.
Deeper grows the night. The heavens heavy in cloud.
With resonate hammering blood pounds against the heart,
and beyond ravines the forest continues out of sight…

From Andrei Platonov’s Blue Depths, part two, translated with the graciousness of Dmitri Manin

Location: Voronezh, Voronezh Oblast, Russia

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