Paul Klee’s Boat

by Anzhelina Polonskaya

Translated from Russian by Andrew Wachtel

Soon it will be winter and soon
a nightingale with a bandaged throat,
a plum tree in bloom, and a white
hill brought to the door.

Illness arrives like Mozart,
sits down at the black piano
and touches the voice with a tone.

I see January, a blockade,
you’re sketching Paul Klee’s boat,
big on petite.

It sails along, the fool, not knowing --
can’t brush the wave from its eyelash.

Somewhere a shutter bangs shut,
and you bend toward the sketch.
Mozart creates like a god!
And the two of us, childless.

We’d be husband and wife,
together forever it seemed.
But burned by Greeks and barbarians
we fled, leaving no trace.




Anzhelina Polonskaya's picture

ABOUT THE POET ~
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. In 2004 an English version of her book, entitled "A Voice, " appeared in the acclaimed “Writings from an Unbound Europe” series at Northwestern University Press. This book was shortlisted for the 2005 Corneliu M Popescu Prize for European Poetry in Translation and for the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL) prize for literature in translation. Polonskaya has published translations in many of the leading world poetry journals, including World Literature Today, Poetry Review, The Ameircan Poetry Review, and International Poetry Review, Boulevar, The Iowa Review, The Massachusetts Review, Prairie Schooner., In October 2011 the “Oratorio-Requiem” Kursk, whose libretto consists of ten of Polonskaya’s poems had debut at the Melbourne Arts Festival. Paul Klee’s Boat, a bilingual edition of her latest poems has just been published by Zephyr Press., Polonskaya’s work has also been translated into Dutch, Slovenian, Latvian, Spanish and other languages . Polonskaya continúes to live and work in Malakhovka, where she is preparing a new volume of poetry for publication.


Last updated June 19, 2011