Translation of Poem by Valery Slutsky, Валерий Слуцкий, "Как в пропасть шаг..." ONE STEP INTO A CHASM

 

Валерий Слуцкий

 
Valery Slutsky
(born 1954)
 
Как в пропасть шаг, сказать любви: «Разрыв»,
Звонкам, объятьям, планам (были ярки)
Всему, что, как ребенок надарив,
Затребует назад свои подарки.
 
Отъятие фатальным – драма, слом,
В котором пережитая утрата
С тобой в неотменяемом былом.
Не то – «разрыв». Им бывшее изъято,
 
От коего душа отщеплена,
Стираются черты, недавно близки,
И оборотень светлого – вина,
Как приговор: «без права переписки».
 
21.8.2024
 
d

                                              Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie
 
One step into a chasm: to say to love, “We’re done,”
To phone calls done, to hugs and plans (once shining),
As if to give to child gifts, and then the next day come:
“I need to take the stuff all back, so give it here, no whining.”
 
Departure for calamity: a fissure incommutable, 
In which the loss you’ve lived through’s fated
To stay with you in some past time immutable,
Not so much “done” as just seized, confiscated
 
From one whose soul is gutted and must wilt;
The features once so near steeped in despondence,
While the lycanthrope of bright hopes known as guilt
Decrees: “without the right of correspondence.”
 

#

                                                  Valery Slutsky: Very Brief Biography

Born in 1954. Native of Leningrad/St. Petersburg, where he published his early poetry. Since 1990 he has lived in Israel.