Подборка стихотворений Гвинет Льюис (на английском языке)

Birder
(i.m. my aunt Megan 1924-2009)
I
Midwinter, season for seeing through
Time and space. Before the War,
You were ‘sparrow’. Now I hear
Geese in your breathing, oboe sighs.
Overhead they’re leaving too. Each bird’s
A letter, making sense
For a moment, then not. Cirrus of snow
Lays over the woods. Sluggish
With ice, the creek’s pulse slows.

II
Morning performance on the stage
Under the feeder. Enter wild turkeys,
A corps de ballet in copper tutus.
Solo of startle – entrechat, entrechat,
Pas de bourées – then the tom
Leads off his harem, one by one,
No curtsey, no curtain call. Then gone.

III
Fashion show: a black-eyed junco
Models its species – train,
Down jacket (in white and slate),
Then profile. When I die
I want to hear birds ricochet
Outside my window, feel the strobe
Of small flocks feeding. I’d like
To deserve this litany:
Woodpecker, waxwing, chickadee.

IV
It’s no small thing to have lived your life
In cardinals’ and tree-creepers’ eyes.
They’ll feel you first as a rendezvous missed,
Then hunger. Your body’s the birds
Waiting as they rise and scatter
To a final slam of the kitchen door.

AN EXPLANATION OF DOLLY

To Adam Z

You asked me last summer: “What is a doily?”

Sometimes, at lunch, I walk on the beach.

Today I was coatless. A storm cloud threatened,

Dark as a spaceship. Should it pour,

A sister ship down in the water

Would throw up grappling nets to the surface,

Rain rise to soak me. Behind a sandbank,

Waves touched the shore, no more than a shimmer.

Less rare than its cousin, the antimacassar,

A doily’s placed between sweet thing and china.

Both survive where vicars arrive

For tea, are given thin cup and saucer

Instead of a mug. If your cake’s so rich

That it’s leaking syrup, you’ll need a doily.

Held up, its paper’s the filigree

Of snowflake, or fingers looked through in fear.

The shower holds off. My shoe’s a doily.

Without it, where would I be on these shells

That crunch underfoot, like contact lenses,

As I gingerly walk, on my mermaid way

Back to my husband in his human dwelling?

Someone is pulling a blue toy trawler

Along the horizon to port, so smoothly

It looks realistic. Sea’s partly doily.

Surfers ride its lace to their downfall,

After all, we’re nothing but froth.

Like a carpet salesman, the indolent tide

Flops a wave over, showing samples: “Madam,

This one is durable, has a fringe.” Under

Its breath the sea sighs, “Has it come

To this? Must everything always end in … doily?”

It must. Broad afternoon. The rain-cloud barges

Have passed and here’s a cumulonimbus parade

Of imperial busts, the Roman rulers

In historical order which, I think, would please you.

Their vapor curls and noble foreheads

Are lit up in lilac because they’re invading

The west. Next come the philosophers and, last of all,

The poets. Pulleys draw them delicately on.

Here comes Lucretius, then Ovid, then Horace

In lines, saying relentlessly, “Doily,” “Doily,”

Till stars take over and do the same.

Fooled Me for Years with the Wrong Pronouns

You made me cry in cruel stations,

So I missed many trains. You married others

In plausible buildings. The subsequent son

Became my boss. You promised me nothing

But blamed me for doubting when who wouldn’t.

If I knew how to please you — who have found

Out my faults. In dreams I’m wild with guilt. Have pity

Kill it. Then, when I’ve lost all hope,

Kiss me again, your mouth so open —

I’d give anything for one more night —

That I go without thought. Don’t bite. No,

Mark me. My husband already knows

Exactly what owns me.

PRAYER FOR THE HORIZON

I wish you, first, an unimpeded view
with a boundary in it, between seen and unseen,
a line to hold onto when you’re feeling sick,
something to aim for but which retreats
as fast as you travel. May you stay undeceived
and see, not a line, but a curve of the earth:
an elegant offing that leads beyond fear
out to Vasco’s discoveries. It’s three:
visible, sensible, rational – lines
for what we may calculate and what we can’t.

In fog, I wish you mercury sight,
artificial horizon, so that you know
where not to be, quickly. I wish you the gift
of knowing where your own knowing ends.

And finally, I ask: when you reach
the event horizon from which your light
will no longer reach us and space, highly curved,
will hide you for ever, that you watch me arrive –
you shouldn’t see me, but you will –
marching with flashing lighthouses, buoys,
to the edge of your singularity
with fleets of full-rigged ceremonial ships
and acres of scintillating sea.