When roads are covered white
And roofs weighed down with snow.
I'll find you by the doorway
As I leave for my stroll.
Alone, no hat or overshoes,
You're in your autumn coat,
And stifling excitement,
You munch some melting snow.
As trees and wooden fences
Fade into the gloom,
Alone amid the snowfall
You stand there at the turn.
From your headscarf water
Drips into your sleeves,
And in your hair a dew
Of water droplets gleams.
And illumined by the light
Of one fair lock of hair -
Your figure, face, and kerchief,
And the coat you wear.
Snow moistens your lashes,
There's anguish in your eyes,
And your whole image is
As one - all of a piece.
And with an iron chisel
Dipped in darkest stain,
Upon my heart indelibly
You're printed and engraved.
This heart preserves forever
The meekness of your traits,
So that it's no matter
The world's a cruel place.
And this entire snowy night
We thus divide and share -
To trace a line between us
Is beyond my power.
Yet who are we, whence sprung,
Since out of all these years
Just empty talk remains
When we are gone from here?
It's with your laughing picture
that I'm living now,
You whose wrists are so slender and crackle at the joints,
You who wring your hands yet are unwilling to go,
You whose guests stay for hours sharing sadness and joys.
You who'll run from the cards
and Rakoczy bravura,
From the glass of the drawing-room and from the guests
To the keyboard on fire, unable to endure
Bones and roses and dice and rosettes and the rest.
You will fluff up your hair,
and a reckless tea-rose,
Smelling of cigarettes, pin to your bright-red sash,
And then waltz to your glory, your sadness and woes
Tossing off like a scarf, beaming, breathless and flushed.
You will crumple the skin of
an orange and swallow
Cooling morsels again and again in your haste
To return to the hall, to the whirling and mellow
Lights, and air with the sweet sweat of fresh waltzes laced.
Defying steam and scorching breath
The way a whirlwind dies,
The way a murid faces death
With wide unflinching eyes.
Know all: not mountains' noise
and hush,
And not a purebred steed-
The reckless roses in your sash
Are riding at full speed.
No, not the clatter of the hoofs
And not the mountains' hush,
But only she who stands aloof
With flowers in her sash.
And only that is really It
What makes our ears ring,
And what the whirlwind-chasing feet,
Soul, tulle and silk sash bring.
Until sides split the jokes are
cracked,
We're rolling in the aisles,
The envy of the romping sacks-
Until somebody cries.
Under willows encircled with ivy
We've sought shelter from wind and from rain.
Round our shoulders we've flung my old raincoat,
And my hands are entwined round your waist.
But I'm wrong! These encircling creepers
Aren't ivy. They're intoxicant hops!
So let's spread the raincoat beneath us,
While the two of us lie down on top…
From the doorway, peering in,
He failed to recognize the household.
Her sudden parting was a flight,
Everywhere - the sign of havoc.
Chaos reigned in all the rooms,
Yet through his pounding migraine
And tears, he could not quite take in
The measure of his ruin.
A rushing filled his ears since dawn.
Was he awake, or dreaming?
And why had these oceanic visions
Invaded all his thinking?
When frosted windowpanes eclipsed
The whole of God's creation,
His anguish all the more recalled
Wild waves and desolation.
That woman was so close and dear
In every trait and feature -
Just like the ocean to its shore,
Like surf drawn to the beaches.
Like reed-beds flooded by the surge
That follows on a storm,
In his soul's depth there lay submerged
Her features and her form.
In years of ordeal, times of woe,
Life's trials had no solution,
But from the seabed she was borne
On waves of rolling fortune.
Over countless obstacles,
Past half a hundred dangers,
The cresting wave bore her at last
Home to dry land, her destination.
But now, removed by higher power,
Suddenly she'd gone,
And parting would consume them, sorrow
Gnaw them to the bone.
On her forced departure, he
Looked about him, all around…
Ransacking drawers and closets, she
Had turned the household upside down.
He wandered through the house till dusk,
And packed away the scattered
Scraps of fabric, ends of cloth,
And her dressmaker's patterns.
Then pricking himself upon a pin
In her abandoned sewing,
He saw her suddenly again -
And silent tears came flowing.
Sotto voce exchanges
And with fervor and haste
She gathers her braids
In a sheaf from the nape.
And she peers from beneath
Her combed helmet of hair,
Then flings her head backward
With its plaited coiffure.
Sultry night in the roadway
Now threatens a storm.
Pedestrians scatter
And shuffle off home.
Abrupt bursts of thunder
Sharply resound,
And at the window
Curtains stir in the wind.
Interregnum of stillness -
Yet still broil and swelter -
And the lightnings still rummage
And ransack the heavens.
And when the morning,
Aglow once again,
Dries up the puddles
After showers of rain,
The limes still in blossom
-
Those fragrant antiques -
Clench their brows, sullen
From shortage of sleep.
