On joy — a bridge falling asleep

by Vladimir Gandelsman
 translated by Anna Halberstadt

On joy—a bridge falling asleep
its spans half-closing}
their eyelids,
how snow keeps flying onto trees,
into their forever open brains,

on river-bed, where a violet drill
revolving heavily
its burdens,
sways heavy chains of
mercury seines

and my little matchbox—
gets buried—up to the roof—by snow,
gifted for the time-being
by a seasonal severe frost…
Two-three landscapes, feelings, two-three themes
and the God of childhood—

this is all there is, all crumbs inside.
On joy, on differences—outside
the stillness’s great.
Soul or body—how any season
is so much better, than they are.

Only the speech, precise, lifted from the bottom,
Wet and free-flowing
is what all of this different—
blind, randomly picked up—
speech always equals.

On joy—on how everything around
slowly falls asleep, on how
a militia’s comet flies,
signaling,
wrapping the greenery of light,
of snow,
around its wheels.