2003-10-23 - 9:48 a.m.
Do you ever rediscover poets. Or just poetry in general? I haven't read any poetry in months. Maybe a year. And for some reason I felt compelled to pick up a Russian poet whose collection I found on my shelves. I'm not sure why. The funny thing is... I used to be so passionate for this guy's works.. and now I can't remember exactly what drew me to him. I look at the pages I turned down in the anthology trying to remember what I saw in those words and I don't get it.
I did find this one though that calls to me now:
from New York Elegy
To S. Mitman
At night, in New York's Central Park,
chilled to the bone and belonging to no one,
I talked quietly with America:
both of us were weary of speeches.
I talked with my footsteps--
unlike words, they do not lie--
and I was answered with circles
dead leaves uttered, falling onto a pond.
Snow was falling, sliding embarrassed
past bars where noisiness never ceases,
settling tinted on the swollen neon veins
on the city's sleepless brow,
on the incessant smile of a candidate
who was trying, not without difficulty, to get in
somewhere, I don't remember just where,
and to the snow it didn't matter where.
But in the Park it fell undisturbed:
the snowflakes descended cautiously
onto the softly sinking leaves,
soggy multicolored floats;
onto a pink and tremulous balloon
childishly fastened with chewing gum
to the trunk of an evergreen
and sleepily rubbing its cheek against the sky;
onto someone's forgotten glove,
onto the zoo, which had shown its guests out,
onto the bench with its wistful legend:
PLACE FOR LOST CHILDREN.
Yevgeny Yevtushenko
