Elegy
About a year has passed.
I've returned to the place of the battle,to its birds that have learned their unfolding of wings from a subtlelift of a surprised eyebrow, or perhaps from a razor blade- wings, now the shade of early twilight, now of state bad blood.
Now the place is abuzz with trading in your ankles's remnants, bronzesof sunburnt breastplates, dying laughter, bruises,rumors of fresh reserves, memories of high treason,laundered banners with imprints of the many who since have risen.
All's overgrown with people.
A ruin's a rather stubbornarchitectural style.
And the hearts's distinction from a pitch-black cavernisn't that great; not great enough to fearthat we may collide again like blind eggs somewhere.
At sunrise, when nobody stares at one's face,
I often,set out on foot to a monument cast in moltenlengthy bad dreams.
And it says on the plinth "commanderin chief." But it reads "in grief," or "in brief," or "in going under."1985, translated by the author.
Joseph Brodsky
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