It’s sad – setting foot on the pavements of your dreamy alleys,
Where ramshackle houses sleepily stare across.
I’ll close my eyes while wrapped in tight lime-blossom fragrance,
To stop summer-hot whirling colourful toss.
My shoulders melt, disappear in heat-haze a-blazing;
I keep counting throbs, locked within and forgetful of time.
Low symphony of Ryazan street coarse language…
It gets woven through with the sun-scorching rhyme.
Next stop is a park, wild, neglected, with rickety benches;
Amidst thicket of weeds rising tall least to cover my face.
Where an unseen little bird sings of wishes unquenched,
And a bumblebee crawls deeply lost in my hair – in the ardent and intricate maze.
Just next to the white, fat, so shamelessly open peonies,
With heavy sweet scent barring dead any outer fuss,
Under carved maple-trees in the depths of dark emerald shadows,
I am tickled to the bone, I am pierced with the green blades of grass.
It’s sad – setting foot on the pavements of your dreamy alleys.
Sleep sweetly, you’ve seen mighty urges and mental upturns;
Sleep sweetly, the land of wise men, heroes, poets, and historical layers,
Stay there, in the dull hazy slumber of yours.
Photo and rendering: Margarita Siourina