About the Author
Books

POETRY  
PROSE
ESSAYS
INTERVIEW
From the book Kliazma and Yauza
From the book The Wild Rose
From the book Tristan and Isolde
From the book Old Songs
From the book Gates. Windows. Arches
From the book Stanzas in the Manner of Alexander Pope
From the book Stellae and Inscriptions
From the book The Iambic Verses
The Chinese Travelogue  
From An Unfinished Book
From the book The Evening Song
From the book Elegies
From the book The Beginning of a Book
The Chinese Travelogue
(1986)

If you could dull its perspicuity, free it from chaos, limit its gleam,
liken it to a grain of dust, then it would seem to exist clearly.
Lao-Tse
15

They say, they have gone on the white road
and the cold, starry sky. they have gone and we will
go too one day:
stepping across the water from stone to stone,
stepping across parting from planet to planet
like a singer’s voice from note to note.
There everyone will definitely meet,
they say, whitened by the Milky Way.
I confess that so many times my heart has approached
the forbidden threshold, how many times has it beat fast
promising something to someone unknown:
no one is seeking me, no one is worried about me,
no one will ask me to stay with them.
Oh. not from the world s grief,
its so wonderful behind the world’s door,
but because I don’t want,
don’t want my sins,
because it is time to go
and ask forgiveness for everything –
you see, no one can survive
without this bread of shining.
It is time to go there
where everything is compassion.

Richard McKane

***

15

By the white way, by the cold and starry cloud they strode,
it is said, and we, too, will go:
fording the water from boulder to boulder,
fording separation from planet to planet,
like a singing voice going from note to note.
It is said that we’ll all meet there, bleached
by the milky road.
How often – I’ll admit – has my heart, beating heavily,
approached the forbidden threshold
promising I don’t know whom:
no one is searching for me, no one will mourn
no one will beg: remain with me!...
It’s not earthly grid that makes miraculous what waits
behind the earth’s door.

it’s because we don’t want, don’t want our trespassing,
because the time has arrived
to ask forgiveness for all, since
none can survive
without this bread of radiance.
It’s time to go where
everything is compassion.

Andrew Wachtel
1. I was surprised by...
2. The pond speaks...
3. They don’t fall, though they fall...
4. There, on the hill...
5. Do you know...
6. I shall only see...
7. The boat flies...
8. The roofs are raised at the edges...
9. Unhappy...
10. Great is the artist who knows no debt...
11. With tenderness and depth...
12. Perhaps you are the precious ring of the spirit...
13. Will we really part...
14. Flute answers flute...
 15. They say, they have gone on the white road...
16. You know that I love you so much...
17. When we decide to set out...
18. Let us praise our earth...
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