|
|
| From the book Stellae and Inscriptions | (1982)
To Nina Braginskaya
who has studied antique epitaphs, and much else, insightfully
|  |
| Inscription | Nina, in a dream, or my mind – we were walking
one time on some old-fashioned road,
alongside, as it seemed to me, various
white and smoothed-out flagstones.
– Not the Appian, some other one, –
you said to me, – it’s not that important, the number of roads
in their cities that crossed
from one grave to another
was legion.
– Hello! – we heard, –
hello! (that, as we know, is the favorite word upon parting).
Hello! How clearly you look at the earth that’s so dear.
Stop: I look with the eyes of the gigantic earth.
Only the emptiness looks. Only the unseen we see.
So go ahead faster or I’ll leave you behind.
Andrew Wachtel | |
 |
|
|
| | | | | |  | | Inscription |
|
|
|
