Innokenty Annensky

I see always the page that is filled on
By the muddy-black blotches of ink.
I am able from men to be hidden,
But to where could I run from night’s brink?

All that live has become so distant,
That didn’t come – so perfectly watched,
And forgotten lines merge from that instant
Till next dawn into many a blotch.

I’m all there – in impossible answers,
Where the letters of dreams loom in sight…               
I like children to be in a house – 
And these children to cry in the night.


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, February, 2001