Anna Akhmatova

Like a wind, voice of woman is flying,
Seems the black one and wet and of night,
And the things it is easily touching –
All become of the other one kind.
It floods all with the diamond glaring,
Somewhere something it silvers for flash,
And, with its unbelievable dressing
Of a silk, it is making a splash.
And such strengths, such unusual powers
Carry forward the spellbound voice,
As if farther is not grave of ours,
But a ladder the heaven across.


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, August, 2002