Loneliness
Joseph Brodsky
1959
When it loses its balance
Your mind is tired,
When the steps of this staircase
Leave from under your feet,
the deck,
When he spits on humanity
Your loneliness at night, —
you can
Meditate on eternity
And doubt the purity
of ideas, hypotheses, perception
Works of art,
And - by the way - the very conception
Madonna of her Son, Jesus.
But you better worship the given
With her deep graves,
which then,
the statute of limitations,
Seem so cute.
Yes. Better worship the given
With her short roads,
which then
strangely
Will seem to you
broad,
Seem big,
dusty,
Littered with compromises,
Will seem like big wings,
Will seem like big birds.
Yes. Better worship the given
With her wretched yardsticks,
which then,
on the extreme,
Will serve as a railing for you,
(Although not very clean),
Keeping in balance
Your lame truths
On this chipped staircase.
[translated from Russian by Nissa Kinzhalina]
