Nel Mezzo Del Cammin

NEL MEZZO DEL CAMMIN DI NOSTRA VITA

by Tomas Venclova

To the memory of Konstantin Bogatyrev


My middle years had overtaken me.
I lived, but studied only non-existence.
Death was for me one of the family,
Took nearly all the space in my apartment.
By stages I had even trained it, so
I'd ask it not to touch me, keep its distance.
I'd see each morning what for all I know
Is Eastern Europe's most exquisite city,
Where iron waits to come into its own,
In gloom the reeds, decaying softly, rustle,
With knuckleduster, locomotive, stone,
Or in, perhaps, the best of cases—petrol.
I slept and drank and ate all inside death.
I tried to give it purpose and some meaning.
Forgot it sometimes. Getting used to it
Is almost too hard for a human being.

I turned the key that barred the corridor.
My heart beat raggedly, weighed down my breast.
It's true: within the confines of this state
Death even, sometimes, was an accident.


Note: Konstantin Bogatyrev, the Russian translator of Rilke and a close friend of Tomas Venclova, was violently murdered, as far as is known, by KGB agents in Moscow in 1976 (see "Why Kostya Had to Die," Index on Censorship, vol. 6, no. 2, March-April 1977, pp. 47-51). The most exquisite city is Vilnius. The reeds, knuckleduster, locomotive, stone, petrol all refer to types of death met by Venclova's friends.


(translated by David McDuff with the author)