In Spasskoe, unforgettable September sheds its leaves.
Isn-t it time to close up the summer-house?
Echo traps the thudding of axe-blows in the trees,
and, past the fence, barters a herd-boy-s shout.


Last night the marsh by the park shivered, too.
The moment the sun rises it vanishes.
The bluebell can-t drink the rheumatic dew,
and a dirty lilac stain soils the birches.


The wood-s downcast. It wants to sleep, as well,
under the snow, in the deep quiet of the bear-s den.
The park, gaping, framed by tree-trunks stands still,
in neat obituary-columns, its edges blackened.

Has the birch copse stopped fading, staining,
its shade more watery still, and growing thin?
And again, you-re, fifteen - it-s still complaining -
again - -oh child, oh, what shall we do with them?-

They-re already so many it-s time to stop playing.
They-re - birds in the bushes, mushrooms in the trees.
Already we-ve veiled our horizon with them, shrouding
each other-s landscape with fog-bound mysteries.

The comic, on the night of his death, typhus-stricken,
hears a peal: it-s Homeric laughter from the box.
Today in Spasskoe, the same grief, in hallucination,
stares, from the road, at a house of weathered logs.