Vadim Shefner

                 1

What do tell us the ‘oral scripts’?
Before Eve, there was once Lilit.

She was here before Eve, she was here,
She didn’t touch the forbidden tree. 

Not a wife she was, not a wife, --
She passed by his life, passed by life.

Not from ribs she came, nor from clay, --
From soft silver of dawns of a day.

Send a smile from the Eden’s reed,
And evanished – for good, indeed.

                 4

From black heaven, the fleeting cranes
Waked a river with their pleas,
Passed away the electrical train – 
And again Earth obtained its peace.

Adam sits – fishing-rods lay beside --
Through a bonfire looks at the night.

Who weeps out the fire deeps,
Widely spreading the bright-reddish plaits? 
Who grieves there – in the river reeds,
Stirs the bushes of autumn late?

Who looks dawn from clouds white,
Shading moon with her dazzling grace, 
Who looks up from the pool at heights,
And alludes to the dark of depths?

There is none there, in fact, there is none, – 
Only shade and moonlight over run.


Not a wife she was, not a wife, --
She passed by his life, passed by life.

.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

Lilit never enters his fate,
But she never permits to forget.


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, April, 2001