Meetings vary.
Pleasant and unpleasant.
Decisive and trifling.
With a sequel and without...
Meetings
stir us up and leave us indifferent.
Renew and age us.
Fill us with hope, or do not.
Raise us above the everyday, or crush us...
But there is only one, a single one
and at the same time the most important meeting,
after which all the others, the earlier ones,
instantly lose their relevance.
It is the meeting with oneself.
It is on this very meeting that everything depends,
everything that will become of you. And how it will be with you.
At least in this life of yours...
A life of ceaseless meetings
– I love the sunrise. I wake a little earlier than the Sun. The Sun and I are fond of playing this game. It is like the way we men bring our beloved, in bed, a tall glass of freshly squeezed fruit-and-vegetable juice made with our own hands.
– What do you love most in the world? – Silence...
– And in music? – Silence...
– The colour dearest to your heart? – Autumn...
– Favourite taste? – A spoonful of real vanilla ice cream with a small sip of bitter ristretto which, melting on the tongue, together create an inimitable bouquet of flavours. As though the weary rays of the August sun were tenderly interweaving and drifting over a gilded forest on the gossamer of an Indian summer...
– Favourite game? – Snowballs with girls.
– The finest of your states? – Ether, only ether...
– So you wouldn't even be sorry if I never saw you again?
– Desired sexual position from the treatise “Kama Sutra”? – Position No. 65A/-I (published only in the expanded editions of recent years, in countries that have lakes at an altitude of at least 800 m above sea level): a nocturnal union in a cool high-mountain lake on the seventeenth day of the lunar calendar, time from 01 to 03:30 CET UTC+1).
– The best drink? – Cold spring water.
– Favourite symphony? – The symphony of whispers.
– The earthly mother dearest to your heart? – The mother I remembered more than all the others. For a long time, and very tenderly, she tickled me in childhood.
– The coolest of scores? – A score in which pauses of differing length alternate correctly.
– Potent medicine? – The sunset. The colours of the autumn afterglow. The medicine works if you look without averting your gaze for at least half an hour. It dries up phlegm wonderfully, drives out bile, heals the liver.
– The most perfect of musical instruments? – The instrument you need not touch physically with hands, fingers or lips to draw a sound from it. The sound is drawn out through the air (yes, yes, it has existed for almost 100 years now).
– Your theory of the origin of the world? – The world arose from sound and colour. And vibration helped them to manifest. That is precisely why music is the strongest drug known to man, and nothing can wean us off this drug. Colour is a drug too, its effect strong and deep. True, this kind of drug can also be a depressant. That is when someone mixes colours wrongly – in clothing, in interiors and so on.
– Day or night? – Night, of course. For me, night is a black square (Kazimir Malevich's “Black Square” is not a painting, as is generally believed). The black square is, first, the most perfect of vehicles, capable of carrying us through galactic spaces without any limits (our personal spaceship). Second, it is our own (personal) canvas, boundless, by the way, able to reveal the subtlest shades of colour, scales, timbres, musical scores. It is important to realise that our true, real life is the one we live at night.
– Perfect female sexuality? – Extreme long shot: a young woman on the horizon, widescreen cinema.
Medium shot: long-haired, red-headed (by the intuition of the male observer, at the level of 100 per cent).
Series of close shots: snow-white, velvety, supple skin, a graceful walk, large eyes, a direct yet still slightly shy gaze. Series of details: freckles scattered here and there – all over the body. Series of macro shots: fingers holding a watering can, fine jets of water and flowers, small lips – a quiet humming. The end! That's a wrap!
Stories vary.
Different people – different stories.
True,
the most interesting tales, in my view,
belong to men... about women and vice versa...
How wonderful it is to muse.
Better can only be – about a splendid woman.
Even like this, at a distance, from the height of many years.
The years grind on. That is their work. Memory keeps watch.
Feelings are not lost – they seep into the depths, shake the silt from themselves,
leaving the lotus...
The lotus – wisdom.
Wisdom visits us later,
later than the moment of physical closeness.
But if wisdom has come,
then all that was – was not in vain!
It was that which helped us become better.
It is this that can be passed on. To others.
Our chance to enrich the human race.
What is real
one does not want to forget.
By no means let it be squandered; on the contrary, keep it,
somewhere
in the depths of oneself,
carry it through, across the whole of life,
give it away,
return it
and give it away again...
It is good that now there is already something to give.
A line of conduct.
A line that pursues us throughout our adult life.
The strongest impression – most often
one or two impressions,
which we absorbed in childhood,
which ate their way in, gnawed their way in
and, having put down roots,
then seethe within us for decades.
They can also be called
a continuous act (a film, a slide show)
of dynamic impressionist casts,
where we are – the screenwriters, the directors, the actor in the leading role, the narrator).
Something like a reagent
which, once added to the flask,
sets off an endless chemical reaction.
Genre of this book (at a classical approximation): unexplained, nameless.
Genre (at medium magnification): rhythmic vibroverseprose of an erotic bent (at the level of the deep sediment), level of eroticism – the so-called early dew (my concept. – Auth.), these are the droplets of dew in the first minutes of its natural formation (those which most effectively influence the health of the soul and the flow of creative energy while walking barefoot on the dew).
Genre (close up): philosophical imaginist fiction or artistic spontaneous-continual sublimation (most comparable to the effect of the gas pressure in a bottle of vintage champagne on its cork).
Suitability for scientific research (lens – “fish-eye”, special effect – artistic blur): suitable.
Requirements: an interdisciplinary research centre, a team of experts.
Subjects: philosophy – a blend of the views of Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche and Hazrat Inayat Khan; optical physics – the world as the interference of a natural or artificial concentrated beam of light; the theory and practice of the art of the first three decades of the 20th century, the psychology of art of the same period;
psychiatry grounded in Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung; practical medicine grounded in the experience of applying Jean-Martin Charcot's contrast shower.
Restrictions may extend, or already extend, to the spheres of education, politics, medicine, culture, pharmaceuticals, science and individual industries.
Restrictions on the use of the experience of the author of this book may extend to the state general education system of particular countries. In the event of a breach of this restriction, the author bears no responsibility for the possible abolition of state regulation of general education in any country, nor for the likely unemployment among officialdom.
The author does not permit medical practitioners to tell their patients about the contents of this book. In so doing, the author sincerely wishes to preserve the nature of the mountains, especially the mountain peaks, for as long as possible.
After the publication of this book, the author does not wish to give consent to any of the well-known pharmaceutical companies for the wide-scale testing of particular propositions in it, fully aware that this may lead to the collapse of modern pharmaceuticals.
It is categorically forbidden to use this text, in parts or as a whole, in election campaigns. This prohibition extends to all continents and territories without exception, including countries that have gained independence and lost it. By this alone the author intuitively reduces the number of revolutions: one century – one revolution.
The author bears no financial responsibility for the possible bankruptcy of companies engaged in so-called space tourism (one interpretation of the concept of “space tourism” involves passengers travelling on a spaceship, which is sharply dissonant with the author's position set out above in the “Dedication” section).
Beginning.
It has begun...
The Sun and the Moon shine at the same time.
There is no “zebra” from day into night and back.
No semaphores, lighthouses, compasses, navigation, traffic controllers or conductors either.
Paradise and Hell – one and the same.
Religions have mixed.
Neither time,
nor discrete space.
...the full moon was approaching.
And there were terribly many crows.
The sky turned black
and writhed in convulsions from the beating of their wings.
Only the moon and only crows.
As I remember, the birds raised a hellishly heavy din.
They sensed.
It hung in the air.
It was our
itch...
It devoured everything around.
And the crows too.
The cries grew louder, just as the thirst grew greater...
The sheet was red. The sky – black.
In the ceaseless turnings of our bodies
the whole world became
red and black.
Red were the moans,
black – the decay visible everywhere...
Our moans drowned in the crying of the birds
and thinned out in bottomless closeness.
There were more crows; they flew in as a disorderly choir.
The full moon was approaching.
Suddenly the world fell mute.
The moon turned into a red sphere.
The black became a plane...
And gulped down the red sphere.
This fervour...
It comes uninvited...
When no one calls it...
A sort of stream, thick and languid.
Scraps of energy both lure and push somewhere.
All around, everything acquires meaning.
Steps grow bolder, the gait becomes firm.
Scattered fragments
fold into one consonantly-compliant whole.
And joy sets in. Not a fleeting one!
Because time loses its sharpness, no longer screens.
Yes, life that is the original – is
a packagetour without any time at all!
P.S.
By the way, this makes Shakespeare, with his Romeo and Juliet, understandable and truly close. He gave them death at the apogee, at the summit of ecstasy, or, to put it more simply, he stopped the hands of the clock. Not for nothing do they say that “the happy do not watch the clock”.
P.P.S.
Then why does the whole world produce such an enormous number of clock mechanisms, long since exceeding the population of the entire planet?
I contemplate the world with wide eyes
that have absorbed the whole experience of humankind,
and already I know everything.
Millions of years of the history of the human race,
reflected by the mirrors of my eyes...
What remains is a handful, a drop in the ocean –
to come to know, if only by a little finger’s breadth,
myself.
Worlds vary, though in truth the world is one.
It, like them, comes in different volumes, and it happens
that one world holds many other worlds within it.
Worlds have the property of narrowing and widening.
Not because of the ambient temperature, of course.
But because of how relaxed you and I are,
the height of our flight and the breadth of our gaze.
Worlds also differ in the fineness of their grind.
Yes, there are coarse ones, less coarse and fine.
Like flour.
Only here everything is the other way round.
The finer the grind, the more harmful the bread.
But the finer the world, the better it is, kinder, more benevolent.
The subtle world leaves no visible traces,
floating past as a vast cloud,
as the sound of a bird’s flight
or the gentle touch of a breeze
when we stand on a mountain top.
This world is head over heels in love with light: of the sun and of the moon.
The music of the spheres.
The sounds of the great silence.
The colours of the sunset.
A brushstroke of the echo of a bird’s flight.
The ardent breath of love.
Cold spring water.
And wood as the principal building material for human dwellings.
And in general,
by some strange coincidence,
the sun shines brighter here, the food is simpler, there is less bustle.
The greatest eccentrics are children.
They build fantastic castles of sand
and do not play at war.
All people smile at one another,
are not afraid of night, of fogs, of winter, of rainy weather.
They learn from nature herself
and do not waste time
on concocting senseless academic dissertations
that swell the dusty archives.
They seem only to observe the world,
while actively creating it.
They build the new, the young,
lightly letting go of the old, the outlived,
without violating or destroying life itself.
Flowing with the current, at any moment, if need be,
they are ready to overcome the most turbulent countercurrent.
Their spirit and thought never grow old,
in blissful intoxication leaving the now worn-out body
that served them well.
It is they, spirit and thought, who open the window
onto a world ever new and at the same time old.
True, by this moment there is no longer any window as such.
It has for ever
lost its frame
and gone out of focus
into the eternity of universes.
Spring will come soon; in me it has already set foot.
True, I love autumn most,
but that plays no role at all.
I was prudent in my youth.
This trait of character has accompanied me all my life.
But today
I feel like being mischievous,
without looking round at others.
Somehow there is no time left at all to live,
to feel that I too have a life, my own life...
We pay attention to those around us
and ...lose our liveliness,
the revolutions of our own life.
Pranks. Ordinary boyish mischief.
That is what has dropped out of the clip.
One can be mischievous and at the same time remain serious,
work to good purpose.
Only everything around is somehow awkward,
everyone lives somehow wrongly, steers happiness away from themselves.
Religions, society, traditions, dogmas,
whispering behind one’s back...
What does all this resemble?
Anything but our own life –
an opportunity given by nature.
A fake, deceptive path.
And the understanding of this mostly comes late.
Why do we brake when we need to step on the gas?
Yes, just floor it!
Unbutton like this, without hiding.
Lay bare our feelings,
open up before everyone,
admit that we are not stone pillars
but living beings
who were given life,
and, to all appearances, so as
to walk it on our own.
And not just along the roadside – through life,
through the very essence of life!
To be mischievous, I want to be mischievous, as I was then...
Yes, there he is, in short trousers,
pattering towards me out of the photograph...
The little scamp
who grew into such a strapping fellow...
It is beginning...
Soon now, perhaps,
I hope... I believe... Almost...
Take aim.
Rain...
Life...
They walk side by side. Always.
For life is eternal.
Just as rain is.
It is always falling somewhere.
Today – over Africa,
tomorrow – over America
and so on,
until it has gone round the whole planet.
It, the rain, made itself a vow —
to help life: its conception, growth, development,
its life-giving and transforming power.
Perhaps that is why children love rain so much.
They have not yet had time to lose their vigour.
The unsullied perception of life.
The freshness of freshness
that they see in everything.
Their bodies are still full of water.
Positively charged.
This can be seen especially well in their skin,
taut as a string and glowing with health.
For the same reason lovers are not indifferent to rain.
Being in love is life itself,
its fullest manifestation.
And reflection.
It is at the same time an instinct.
The instinct to replenish the kind,
to fertilise with new life.
New life is especially good to feel,
or rather to smell, after rain. Have you tried?
When the rain evaporates from the grass, the bushes, the trees
and begins its way back, up there...
Birds especially love rain.
It seems they fall in love straight after rain,
sitting on a twig,
soaking, soaking wet,
sad, so very sad.
They peer out:
when at last on the neighbouring tree will he appear,
their future chosen one.
And what of birds – even fish come alive
in their vast watery space,
so monotonously quiet for us humans.
And it seems they swim briskly up to the surface of the water, swallowing air on the way, only
so as
to leave less of it for us...
Dear, kindly jokers...
They know something. Sages!
For instance, that there is no need to take shelter in the rain.
And in general,
to be shy, to feel ashamed –
is not the best choice in life...
In human life in particular...
Go out to meet the rain.
The time has come. Do not put it off.
Take the bar with a run-up.
Without long deliberation, let alone doubts.
I know, all sorts of thoughts get tangled in your head,
though in fact these are not thoughts
but a tightness that gets in the way of living,
or rather, gives no resource for flying.
So cast off this damned foolishness
and
levitate,
do not ground yourselves,
do not drive the spirit into its material shell,
let your wings unfold
and look straight into the cloudless sky.
And in general, how can one live
without falling in love every day, every moment?
There is so much beauty all around:
nature in all its manifestations,
women.
I, for example, fall in love incessantly.
It is enough just to look out of the window in the morning,
if at that moment I happen to be in the city.
Or to step out onto the porch of a wooden house, if in the forest.
Or to crawl out of the tent, if on a walking journey.
God, how many objects!
And all of them are waiting for you to pay them attention:
to caress them with a glance,
a gentle touch,
a tender smile,
ringing, kindly laughter,
to praise,
to share,
to exchange positive energy.
I love the Sun.
This love came long ago, on one of the days of May.
My mother took slight offence at me,
grown plump on her nourishment
to four-odd kilograms in her belly.
I kicked and pushed ceaselessly
(the question arises: why offend my own dear mother?) and ...pushed it too far.
My angered mother up and
pushed me straight out (here one must pause for a moment and say that I felt not at all bad at her place,
that is, inside her; but what appeared before my gaze I shall never forget)
into a blossoming garden,
filled with fragrance,
music
and sunlight.
Since then I have loved the Sun.
And I am not unfaithful to it, not once have I been unfaithful.
I simply have no need of it – being unfaithful.
I live with it in complete harmony
and am never cross,
even if it sometimes blinds me or burns my skin.
Nor do I take offence that it warms others.
Yes, not once have I been disappointed in it.
I see it different every day,
but that does not stop me talking with it
as with an old acquaintance.
And, most importantly, greeting it in the morning,
even when it cannot be seen for the clouds.
I love women.
For a long time, as it sometimes seems to me. Endlessly long.
And I shall go on loving them.
They nourish me, and I nourish them in turn.
I do not begrudge giving the whole of myself
even to her, the first woman I meet who has caught my fancy.
And I have no idea,
I keep no count of how many times a day I fall in love.
Many, endlessly many...
It can happen anywhere:
at a bus stop,
in the park, on a stroll,
in the library, the theatre –
wherever they are and wherever I happen to be.
I never hold myself back,
for my heart is without measure,
and the energy spent is invariably replenished,
like a solar battery.
And what of the Moon, the stars?
How wonderful to fall in love with them!
And beneath them.
Every night.
Composing verses, for instance.
Yes, they are grateful for fine serenades.
How much benign energy,
love, sensuality the stars return to us
for our heartfelt feelings for them
and love poems!
Who but us can let them understand
their power over us.
Worship of their unearthly beauty. Of the marvel itself.
What could be more beautiful
than, sitting on a mountain peak by a campfire,
to glide an enamoured gaze across the firmament,
drinking one’s fill of stars?!
And how wonderful that there are so many of them!
There will be enough for each of us.
No one takes offence.
One need only relax.
And set the focus precisely.
On the star that has caught your fancy, of course.
For by this moment
the woman should already be close by, snuggled at your side.
A little later the Moon and the stars will let me rest.
After all, I have not seen the Sun for a long while.
I quietly fall asleep to the symphony of the starry sky
and the caresses of my beloved,
so as to wake in an hour or two,
refresh myself in a cold stream
and greet the dear little Sun,
which can hardly wait for me.
Did you see?
It rose from behind the neighbouring mountain and caressed me.
Today I am its first.
As a token of gratitude.
For my never forgetting it
and getting up on time in the morning.
And for not misusing it,
sprawled lazily on a beach,
having first rubbed into my own skin
a couple of kilograms of cream.
Nor am I unfaithful to it with a wretched machine
by the name of solarium,
even if at the time I happen to be in the North.
So make haste.
Every lost day,
moment – is a life wasted.
Urgently drop all your most important affairs now.
They will sort themselves out.
But only afterwards. After...
the time has come.
Spring. Even while the snow still lies.
The snowdrops will blossom all the same!
Fall in love!
For it is autumn already.
But no matter if dry leaves rustle underfoot.
They, like the snowdrops, whisper.
Whisper to you of love.
Slow down.
Just for a moment.
Curious are the relations of humankind with someone they call God.
On closer examination it turns out
that no one has ever seen God, though most claim that he exists.
From people’s lips I wrote down the following:
God exists.
There is no God.
God sees and hears everything.
God loves us.
God does not love us.
God will punish.
God will have mercy.
Help, O God!
I try to understand what all this means,
and conclude that people are afraid of responsibility.
Responsibility for independent decisions.
With a partner it is easier for them.
This has become their consolation: it is always easier to fight for survival as a pair.
Even if that other one is not rubbing against your elbow here, at your side.
My mood cannot be spoilt.
The very concept is alien to me – mood.
Really, why do most people
make their mood directly dependent
on external factors,
on the actions of other people, the weather and other nonsense?
After all, everything around is reality!
The only correct reference point should be
inner calm,
neutrality with the surroundings and within the surroundings,
and through them – balance.
Balance cannot be disturbed.
By anyone or anything.
That is what it, balance, exists for.
A human being is nothing and everything at once.
Here it is, the simplest formula of balance.
Given, moreover, by nature,
which never deceives us, does not tolerate objections of the “but surely...” kind
When it comes to
how and with what to spoil the mood,
we must be nothing,
and when to the true purpose of a human being – everything.
Then our soul must open up
and warm all who need it.
You are surrounded by evil,
its pressure is off the scale,
and in response you radiate warmth.
The most perfect balance.
It even adds up mathematically into an equation.
Here is a worthy way to show yourself,
to spend energy...
The assembling of new life is another example of a worthy expenditure of energy.
Or creativity – we change the world for the better.
Relax,
your mood is no longer under any threat.
There are only a few things
before which it is worth standing in awe.
We write down life as such as number one.
That one is for everyone.
In second place I write down the mountains.
Why?
Quite simply, at a great height my head does not ache.
The higher into the mountains, the less I feel my head.
But just try lugging it, that head, around a city,
even on broad shoulders!
No workouts
in ultra-modern gyms
or stimulants like coffee, tea,
various capsules with senseless fillings will help.
I climb higher.
I notice my head less.
At last comes the moment of the full buzz.
I feel like a fish in water.
And how one thinks!
What thoughts come!
And they do not leave, they stay,
no tram ride shakes them apart
and no exhaust fumes at the crossroads paralyse them.
The bad ones do leave, true.
Good riddance...
But the blessed ones grow ever more.
An orbit opens towards wisdom.
From the closeness of wisdom and the absence of headache – a straight path to a healthy old age,
or rather, to longevity.
A joyful one...
Freed from the stench and bustle of the city.
Yes, I forgot the most important thing – affairs of the heart.
And how one falls in love!
It happens that you climb yet another summit,
cast your eye over everything left down there, below,
and suddenly... you see a girl.
And already there is tender passion.
And she!
Catching sight of you, glowing with purity and health,
she will sense a man
who has broken free of earthly gravity
and with a non-trivial empiricism besides, which is not often met,
hallowed by the divine spark and the might of the mountains...
Ah!
Not for nothing do those gods who perhaps do exist after all
love the heights so terribly...
I don’t want to go to the city.
No longer
do I want to.
Without noticing, I came to love an astringent taste.
It filled the mouth with a touch of bitterness and saliva of a special kind and spread freshness through the whole body, fed the grey matter.
The sweet one, my favourite in childhood, was leaving me irrevocably.
The tastes of those years surfaced in memory, my mother’s image cut through,
her inimitable home baking and jams.
Sweet...
The sweetness of childhood.
Of childhood games.
Of castles in the air.
Astringent...
The taste of life’s experience, of wisdom.
Of limits.
Of creation.
Which of them to prefer?
Perhaps to remain a child to the end of one’s days, going on playing, like the greater part of the sons and daughters of the Earth?
– Would you like another slice of cake? Eat, don’t be shy!
Soon the whole planet will turn into an immeasurable cake, so there will be enough for everyone – just keep shovelling it into your mouths.
Where shall I leave my body after
it has served its appointed term?
Where it is very cold,
ice,
perhaps permafrost –
not far from the North or the South Pole.
Yes, I want to leave my body there,
to melt with the remnants of my warmth
a great block of ice
and, having melted together with it,
to fall into the icy ocean
so as to dissolve at once.
The thought that there
are no worms
warms me...
I shall not stink,
nor squabble with my neighbours in the cemetery
that I have too little room,
nor will they scold me
for taking up too much of it.
So it happened – while still alive
I adored space, spaciousness.
Not only for thought – for the body too.
And also –
I deeply love polar bears!
In this or that,
I don’t know myself which,
life of mine
I was so seldom near them.
God. Mute silence... At last.
Neither people nor their voices,
no senseless weeping –
for even in the cemetery
they give no peace,
with noise,
with idiotic music
they try to bring me back to earth.
But I don’t want to, I am sick of it.
A whisper... A special kind of energy transfer.
That is why lovers use it first of all.
And children, of course.
Lovers and children.
They understand life. Don’t they?
Actors too know some magic power
that whispering has over people.
Not to mention true artists,
the finest composers or outstanding conductors
who master the technique of conveying a whisper impeccably.
Everyone whispers.
The whole world.
Fear recedes,
illnesses leave us and it becomes merry. For everyone.
Transport is silent, even aeroplanes.
Though this kind of transport, like all others,
may no longer be needed.
Having mastered the technique of whispering,
we have learned to fly ourselves.
And move easily through space.
Do you hear? An ant! Even its footsteps can be heard...
A spider. The sound of a web being woven.
A butterfly.
The beating of its wings
and its inimitable patterns make up a little song.
A wondrous little song of love.
A whisper is a special music.
The music of infants and for infants.
Otherwise they would not fall asleep so sweetly
to their mother’s whisper.
The whisper of the forest.
It is a whole world.
A world
full of beauty,
wonder
and knowledge.
Some, very gifted,
endowed with a special kind of sensibility,
compose whole symphonies out of whispers.
And grandiose ones at that!
Such was Alexander Scriabin.
A universal cosmopolitan.
These devils, the Russians,
know how to feel,
to unite the ununitable – West and East.
And they chose the most advantageous place for themselves,
stretching for kilometres
whose number is beyond the mind’s grasp.
Or Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis.
Who constantly heard whispers.
And spoke in a whisper too.
How else could there have come from under his brush
these wondrous paintings.
The whispers of the forest, of mountain peaks,
of colours, music, folk legends
merged in him into an inimitable symphony.
A symphony of whispers.
An indivisible symphony of life and art.
Of that life in art
which is inseparable from the art of life.
They, Scriabin and Čiurlionis,
had poor health
but a mighty talent and spirit.
Hence the whisper.
Bodily frailty sustained them.
It put out shoots.
Grew up and opened.
Manifested itself as might.
With them, the great masters, the whisper is power!
God’s whisper.
It is for those who have earned it.
Who sincerely believe in kindness.
Who were unjustly hurt, disappointed, have failed.
But did not let themselves be broken.
Who chose their life’s work,
a worthy goal
and do not stray from the path.
Who can fetch a star down from the sky.
Who polishes the world,
overcomes evil, but always by the power of good.
Who breathes light in when it is dark.
Leads crowds after them towards the dawn.
Who has learned to lose so as to find later.
And does not cling to matter, keeping the spirit for themselves.
It is to such as these that one night he will come down,
God himself,
and unnoticed whisper what and how...
Lucky ones. They have earned it!
And from that minute on they waste no time.
Let us rejoice for them.
A whisper spreads in waves,
special ones, akin to ultra-short radio waves.
So as to remove possible obstacles.
Not like a shout,
Which flattens itself against the very first obstacle:
a wall, a ribcage.
Never reaching the most important thing – the heart.
Everyone whispers
who is charged with pure positive energy.
Plants. Have you heard their whisper, their whispering to one another?
It is very like
the rustle of leaves in a breath of breeze.
And sometimes – the crackle of dry leaves under the paws of a squirrel
come down from a branch for an acorn it has taken a fancy to.
At times the whisper is strong, even mighty.
That is when heavy rain suddenly pours,
and heavy drops
plop down painfully from kilometres up.
Then everything calms down
until it falls completely still
...in the last drop
that slid to the ground
from a large fern leaf
and at once seeped
into the dry, cracked earth,
filling it with moisture,
our prana, yours and mine.
Why is a child
who builds a castle of sand
happy,
beginning its construction at dawn and finishing it at sunset?
And why is an adult happy when he starts to build his house
and madly tired, drained, when he finishes?
The reason is obvious:
the child never thinks of settling in its castle
or, God forbid, living in it, furnishing it,
and then endlessly repairing it.
It raises its castle
without a fence, open to the sun’s warmth,
to the gentle wind,
and finds its happiness
in instantaneous and therefore continuous renewal,
does not grow used to artificial circumstances...
It has firmly grasped with a child’s instinct:
its building material –
sand –
will never run out,
and at any second it can
change the design,
build on,
rebuild
or simply
let the sea wave wash it away...
For tomorrow the sun will rise again
and in the morning there will again be enough sand
with its mind of the elements...
A splendid building material.
For our mind – too.
If, of course, we want to sleep peacefully,
to wake up refreshed and to build the eternal
that does not spoil and does not crumble.
I love to stand on a height,
measuredly-rhythmically grinding
with two enormous nostrils
the inexhaustible ether,
and with it
the deafening emptiness of human life...
My nose
sucks in the breath of the universe.
It never loses the rhythm
and never sniffles,
being in complete union
with the surrounding nature and the cosmos.
It breathes
in a sound body and with a strong spirit, in unity,
consuming a meagre fraction of the chemical compound
that envelops the planet,
and recuperates
calm and warmth.
I am freezing.
Probably because I want to give warmth
but cannot, they do not let me.
That is why I am sad.
They do not let me...
But I shall take it, without fail.
I shall lead this world to the altar, like a daughter of Eve.
And I shall create...
Create!
I shall melt the itch into creation.
Desire is passing, one need only wait it out.
Creation is not; it is eternity itself.
And how else
can a white crow survive?
When the sky is black, so black.
And the noise has cut off the access of clean air.
I shall whisper and
plant white dots...
White dots...
They broadcast silence...
Muteness...
A whisper...
It gives birth to colour...
A rainbow...
Many rainbows...
And my love of life...
For it was life itself that gave me
the joy of creation.
And no one will take it away now:
neither the black crows nor the cold.
I dream of her
in whom I could dissolve
entirely, without remainder.
Her who would receive me without words,
purely as a woman does,
at first sight,
like a prodigal son
who left home who knows when
and returned from who knows where.
Why questions? No need to ask...
Take off your clothes and get into the bath,
let your body steam.
A worn-out male body.
Wanderings...
Forget them for a while.
The eternal search for the meaning of life...
Here is
soap,
a sponge,
slippers.
Try a bowl of thick hot soup,
lie down in bed,
a bed for two,
warmed by a woman’s warmth.
Free yourself of the last burden...
Sleep...
The sleep of an infant...
As though you lay in a forest glade
flooded with sun
after a long battle...
Morning.
The parental home.
Sounds from the kitchen
awaken memories.
Mother.
She is busy at the stove.
Her caring hands.
Strong tea
and fragrant, slightly burnt bread rings.
Hm, how wonderful to grow up in joy…
I write...
I feel two fields
closing into a circuit...
Every moment it seems to me –
what I am writing
I have already heard somewhere,
seen
or someone has already written it before me...
At the same time this someone is so close to me
that it is almost I myself.
True, the bodily shell cannot be felt.
Only something shifting, fluid...
Strange, however hard I strain,
to determine its sex,
even by guesswork,
I cannot…
In my soul time is not identified
with the movement of the hands of the town-hall clock
or with the chanting of a church bell.
Every mission, every new project
is a continuation of the previous one
and at the same time something utterly different.
Perhaps that is why I do not know
what age means –
a screwball formulation introduced by earthlings.
A new acquaintance, a beloved,
alike and at the same time unlike
the others, the earlier ones.
But she never becomes permanent, obligatory.
In a few earthly hours
I live a full life with them
and, parting,
I feel them inside myself,
my heart cleaving to them for ever.
I know that everything is
changeable,
impermanent
and at the same time eternal.
And I do not just know it, I also abide by this principle.
Alas, only that
which people grind out and stamp out is not eternal.
Houses that are put up soon crumble,
Machines that are designed rust and fall apart.
But life remains.
It is renewed every spring, every moment.
Life is not merely
eternal, but also new.
Over long years,
having worn the seat of my trousers shiny on the school bench,
having watched people enough,
I never managed to grasp the strange concept of “death”.
I am seized by great doubts
as to the possibility of its existence.
No, most likely, it is an invention.
Someone, apparently, needs
to mark, to designate destruction.
The destruction of the physical body.
The body, the bodies, that are produced in any quantity you like. But by whom?
Perhaps by that very life?
On meeting the rain, people for some reason would start to run.
Yes, they fled from the rain and tried to hide where
the rain could not reach them.
Many, as they fled, looked at the sky and swore.
It was extremely strange to realise
that most people take themselves to be the first principle of nature.
People did not agree with the phenomena of nature!
To penetrate the inner world of such people
was beyond my capacities,
for much earlier I had learned to live
in harmony with nature,
taking it as an axiom.
True, as always, there were exceptions here too,
which delighted me terribly.
For instance, certain young couples.
They
made merry,
laughed,
kissed,
standing in the rain.
There were also young women on their own
who held out their hands to the rain.
They were in seventh heaven
and paid no attention to the fact
that their clothes were soaked through.
I must confess,
I did not pass these young women by
and was never disappointed.
They were not interested in anything
to do with my so-called
occupation,
place of residence,
marital status,
age –
concept-terms
that I had mastered only here, on Earth.
I walked with them for a long time,
joked,
played,
admired
and made love.
Parting,
neither of us asked
about a new meeting
and promised the other
nothing.