Konstanin Vanshenkin

All going to the whiteness, earthly,
As an unmoving immense wall,
There pours a snow, becoming denser,
And shields us from daylight at all.

Not giving to its move attention,
How slow is its heavy stream – 
It seems, the force of gravitation
Directs it to the earthly realm.

Behind this shroud of the whitness,
Towns are hidden and green woods,
Behind this whitness of the silence,
There are the voices, rings and hoots.

Behind this curtain, white and giant, 
Lies winter in the sunny lights,
Behind this mental whitened bound
Our universe, eternal, lies.

Then let all be in it in rightness:
Wide rivers’ floods and birds returns,
The cannonades of July’s thunders,
The noisy rain, the noiseless snows.


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, September, 2002