By Aleksey Calvin


1)
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                                                                      An Immigrant Century's PRELUDE:

(The poet's translation of Vladimir Nabokov's)
                                                                                      THE SWALLOW

One day, at the break of an evening,
You stood with me on an old bridge.
"Say whether," I asked, "to the moment you die
That swallow there's image you'll keep?"
"No doubt!", you replied and I felt it resound...
Oh, how we then melted and wept!
How life, in its flight, only once shouted out...
'Til morning, forever, 'til death -
One day, on that bridge we still stand...

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                                                                                                 … : ...

                                                                            AN IMMIGRANT CENTURY:

                                                                                                   . ...

                                                                                                ******
                                                                    An Immigrant Century's POSTSCRIPT

                                                                     WHO AWOKEN IN A CHAIR, WRITES,

"I am ready for my gift, God",
Ain't this ready for the full reward.
Though "inconstant" was a thing, God,
My eternity is not a thing at all.

To know one swallow through the flux, God,
By the way a swallow cries out. 
Air grows cold above the bridge now.
And my memory
Has shaky knees.

Air grows dark above the bridge now:

I am standing.
I am on my knees.

In the draft beside the door I stand,
On a bridge above the water flow;
That's how my memory is strong, see?

                                God is dancing on the cobblestones

*Tadadoom tadadum dum*

                                What is dancing over cobblestones?