Иосиф Бродский. БАБОЧКА I Сказать, что ты мертва?...

Joseph Brodsky. BUTTERFLY

I
To say you're dead?
But you only lived for a day.
How much sadness in a joke
Creator! barely
I can pronounce
"lived" - the unity of the date
birth and when you
in my hand
crumbled me
confused to subtract
one of two quantities
within a day.

II
Then what are the days for us -
nothing. Only
nothing. You can't pin them
and the food of the eyes
can't do it: they
on a white background,
not having a body
invisible. Days,
they are like you; rather,
what can weigh
reduced tenfold
one of the days?

III
To say that not at all
you? But what then
in my hand so similar
with you? and color -
not the fruit of nothingness.
At whose prompt
and so the paints are put?
I hardly
muttering lump
words foreign to color,
imagine this
palette smog.

IV
On your wings
pupils, eyelashes -
whether beauties, birds -
scraps of whose
tell me are these persons
flying portrait?
What, tell me, is your case
particles, grains
reveals a still life:
things, fruits?
and even fishing
the trophy is extended.

V
You may be a landscape
and, taking a magnifying glass,
i will find a group
nymphs, dance, beach.
Is it as light there as day?
or it's sad there,
how at night? and shone
what is in it
ascended to the sky?
whose figures are in it?
Tell me from what nature
was it made?

VI
I think you are
this and that:
stars, faces, objects
you have features.
Who was that jeweler
what, without frowning,
applied in miniature
on them that world
what drives us crazy
takes us in pincers,
where are you, like a thought about a thing,
we are the thing itself.

Vii
Tell me why the pattern
such was given
you just have a day
at the edge of lakes
whose amalgam is for the future
keeps space?
And you take away the chance
such a short time
get into the net,
flutter in the palm of your hand
at the moment of the chase
captivate the pupil.

VIII
You won't answer me
not for a reason
shyness and not
from evil, and not
then that you're dead.
Alive or dead -
but every creature of God
as a sign of kinship
granted a voice for
communication, singing:
prolongation of the moment,
minutes, days.

IX
And you - you are deprived
this pledge.
But, arguing strictly,
it's better this way: on
what a hell to be in heaven
in debt, in the registry.
Well do not be distressed if
your age, your weight
worthy of silence:
sound is also a burden.
Ethereal than time
you soundless.

X
Not feeling, not
having lived to the point of fear,
you curl lighter than dust
over the flowerbed, outside
like a prison
with her suffocation
the past with the future,
and that's why
when you fly to the meadow
wanting food
takes shape
the very air suddenly.

XI
So does the pen
sliding on the surface
a lined notebook
not knowing about
the fate of your line,
where is wisdom, heresy
mingled but trusting
shocks of the hand,
in whose fingers the speech beats
quite dumb,
not removing dust from a flower,
but the weight from the shoulders.

XII
Such beauty
and the time is so short
connecting by guess
crooked lips:
do not make it clearer
what really
the world was created without a purpose,
and if with her,
then the goal is not us.
Entomologist friend,
there are no needles for light
and no for darkness.

XIII
Say goodbye to you?
how is the shape of the day?
there are people whose reason
cuts lichen
oblivion; but take a look:
to blame
just what's behind
they don't have days
with a bed for two,
not dense dreams,
not the past - but clouds
your sisters!

XIV
You are better than Nothing.
Rather: you are closer
and more visible. But inside
one hundred percent
you are related to him.
In your flight
it reached the flesh;
and that's why
you are in the hustle and bustle of the day
worthy of a look
as an easy obstacle
between him and me.

1972