Nikolay Aseev

If you are absent, I couldn’t exist!
If you are absent, a rain – a drought;
If you are absent, Moskva – a mist,
If you are absent, a heat – a cold.

If you are absent, a flesh – a year,
As if time’s milled to the atoms’ lot;
If you are absent, the heaven here 
Hangs like the icy and stony vault.

I do not know, as knew before, 
Strengths of my foes, weakness of friends; 
I do not want to wait anything more, 
Only your always invaluable steps. 


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, March, 2001