Abyssal
Like an entire winter. Like Bruegel in the snow with his hunters,
the barking of dogs in the kennel.
In deep barbarity, in elemental constancy,
in the frenzy of fire where February has lain for a year. He is dead.
But his shadow lives.
And I grow in his shadow like a bitter grain,
unable to break the shackles of ice, catching your breath, my sorrow.
My sorrow, between us plague and famine, and riders on phantom horses
silently trample the naked fields. Your breath,
just reach out your hand and from your hand
there will remain ash.
The Music of Shostakovich
You’re the only one who doesn’t answer my letters and they burn up en route, the ash floating down to the ground. You evade snares and traps with the cunning of a wild bird. You have no name in our ancient drama. Like a child you play on the knees of twilit moonbeams and then follow a caravan like a peddler. The soldiers mocked you and threw you into a ditch at night. And now we’re silently drinking wine, dipping lemon wedges into our glasses. You’re my sacred music, and the hands of February are caressing you, making a blizzard in your crazed pupils, leading you to Shostakovich’s final C.
Anzhelina Polonskaya was born in Malakhovka, a small town near Moscow. Since 1998, she has been a member of the Moscow Union of Writers and in 2003, Polonskaya became a member of the Russian PEN-centre.
Polonskaya has published translations in many of the leading world poetry journals, including The Iowa Review, Agni, Image, The Massachusetts Review, Ploughshares, The Kenyon Review, Witness, New England Review, Common, WLT, etc.
Andrew Wachtel is President of inVision U (Almaty, Kazakhstan), and a co-founder of Compass College of Art and Design (Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan). Previously, he served as Rector of Narxoz University in Almaty, and President of the American University of Central Asia in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Before coming to Central Asia, he was dean of The Graduate School and director of the Roberta Buffett Center for International and Comparative Studies at Northwestern University. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, his academic interests range from Russian literature and culture to East European and Balkan culture, history, and politics, to contemporary Central Asia. He works as a translator from multiple Slavic languages and consults on educational projects throughout Eurasia.
