Kenigsbergen girl
I - Kenigsberg - 1945
Kenigsbergen sissy girl,
refugee on an unknown path...
The pier is covered with suitcases.
God save us - we didn’t make it to “Gustloff”
It was as if people were popping up like corks
from the deep water gasping for air,
only prolonging their agony -
there was no rest for the drowning people,
In the gray Baltic their death is hateful,
and the water is like cold blood in their veins.
They fled from the burning city,
so that the Slavs don’t grab children.
Slurred speech, greedy looks,
brutal, merciless.
So that old people don't get shot from drunks,
we gave them ampoules of poison -
and were baptized into the smoky sky,
and prayed for their lost lives.
From pilots with English language,
you can’t hide the stupid crowd,
On the alleys with hundred-year-old oaks
against the axe - with branches-lashes.
Along the Tilsit tract to Allenstein,
For those without a mustache "Tommies" is an easy target.
Volkswagens are abandoned on the roads,
Even the tanks' barrels are skewed.
Like Saint Mary and Child,
covering the daughter with a towel,
throwing away both food and clothes,
keeping only hope for a miracle.
The sky is black in broad daylight -
"Mother of God, hide us!”
An old man with a cart picked me up with my mother,
through the fields and took it out, and were - crawling.
II - Chadds Ford - 1971
Many years have passed since that time,
there was no clan or tribe left.
Far from the native shore
We were greeted by a foreign America.
There fate noticed a different one,
Yes, the non-native land greeted -
life is laundry and dishwashing,
not fatal - but vile.
I’d grown up. And I became the bride.
I won’t say that I’m too tired -
husband, diapers are the same as everyone else’s,
and did not look forward to other pleasures in life.
I wouldn't even notice the difference
But I met him in one of those days
And I didn’t decide anything -
He taught me to see and breathe.
And he burned me with his dream,
what I wear, like a cross, this burns me.
There is a stigmata in your fist, just open it.
There is no one dearer to me in the world.
He was an artist, but that’s not the point,
he did not let my soul drown in the swamp.
It wasn't the dust that fell from my eyes -
it was a snowfall.
He redrew my entire destiny.
Who am I to love me?
And that day came, like a blessing by crusafiction
I’m not his wife became,
but the other is alien, unnecessary.
That's when the suffering began -
all about him only memory.
III - Snow Hill - 1989
Reader, don't judge us.
Don't expect a simple fate
and it’s not for you to decide,
It's better to wait it out in patience.
Life is given to us from God,
and it’s not always simple -
His ways are unsearchable
and thoughts are inscrutable.
Now you are reading about us,
after all, we are His iconostasis.
He saved everything from oblivion,
what is divine in us.
And for many, many years
He will preserve the icon row,
not subject to rot, forgotten and rejected.
It's like midges in amber
or frozen bird at January dawn
for children's entertainment.
Christina, Betsy, Helga in a circle,
former enemies and friends -
his favorite models,
They put on their old suits.
And the boy in the house at the gate,
that by Ray Bradbury, lives
and wanders somewhere in the evenings,
which: means "R is for rocket".
Their destinies Andrew wrote,
so that the Merciful One reads.
God awakened souls to life,
and accompanied him to hell and heaven.
Predicting your death,
that you will burn on the hill
not with memorials in the ranks,
and in a round dance on the edge
The same abyss in the rye,
what lies on the face of the Earth.
And in bright ribbons there is a round dance
- laughs, cries and sings.
Where Andrew is the master-demiurge,
completes the circle.
IV - Helga, Betsy, Andrew - 2009
That's how we lived. I rarely saw him.
But I loved - I didn’t hate.
You fell ill into bed at the end of the day,
and your wife called me
For our last date.
You were an artist, I am a creature
your beautiful wrinkled hands,
gentle, strong, so masculine.
You've become old, and I'm old too,
I am no longer your lover, but your sister,
and I called you Andy.
And became alive again - not a toy.
For me, you are the same as before,
You taught me to live not for vanity.
Being with you is a wonderful happiness,
and patience with flour of the cross.
We cried with Betsy, we grieved together,
the feuds all went away on their own,
under one roof we didn’t ask,
but we took turns comforting you…
You died at night, you died in your sleep,
did not live until the morning, did not answer me.
You are my dear friend, my affectionate friend!
God resurrect you with Holy Passover!
And it was not life that brought us together,
made us related.
But death humbled us, united us...
So the inevitable winter happened.
And Kenigsbergen girl remained alone
V - Helga - 2011
I was glad
just to live by you
a bit more
as long as we're together
next to each other
sick healthy
young or old
helpless
without strength without teeth
sane or completely crazy
at least one more day
let us be together
and I don't need benefits
neither honor nor glory
Nothing
no money and without it
as if in childhood
perhaps even better
even easier...
A helicopter hovering over the house
and the lens is aimed by journalists
they want to see more details
everything that you once drew
without seeing it
what they don't need to see -
you are my dear my favorite
I see you in my dream again
