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:
. ...
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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?