Bella Akhmadulina

How do you make this, o my colleges-comrades?
Having waked up, while dark’s moving to light,
you take your pen and open your notes,
and write – and is this quite enough to write?

No, in my case, all’s worse and all’s another:
I’d spend a candle, look through a window’s pane
like a bad student, that hasn’t solved his puzzle…
and find that light’s moving to dark again.

First comes the night of vigilance and woe,
Then (will it come?) the undistinguished hum…
We’re to begin that when we’re born – not grown –
and today I have neither mood nor time.


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, January 10, 2005