William Carlos Williams (Уильям Карлос Уильямс)

A Celebration

  A middle-northern March, now as always--
  gusts from the south broken against cold winds--
  but from under, as if a slow hand lifted a tide,
  it moves--not into April--into a second March,
  the old skin of wind-clear scales dropping
  upon the mould: this is the shadow projects the tree
  upward causing the sun to shine in his sphere.

  So we will put on our pink felt hat--new last year!
  --newer this by virtue of brown eyes turning back
  the seasons--and let us walk to the orchid-house,
  see the flowers will take the prize to-morrow
  at the Palace.
                Stop here, these are our oleanders.
  When they are in bloom--
                          You would waste words
  It is clearer to me than if the pink
  were on the branch. It would be a searching in
  a coloured cloud to reveal that which now, huskless,
  shows the very reason for their being.

  And these the orange-trees, in blossom--no need
  to tell with this weight of perfume in the air.
  If it were not so dark in this shed one could better
  see the white.
                It is that very perfume
  has drawn the darkness down among the leaves.
  Do I speak clearly enough?
  It is this darkness reveals that which darkness alone
  loosens and sets spinning on waxen wings--
  not the touch of a finger-tip, not the motion
  of a sigh. A too heavy sweetness proves
  its own caretaker.
  And here are the orchids!
                           Never having seen
  such gaiety I will read these flowers for you:
  This is an odd January, died--in Villon's time.
  Snow, this is and this the stain of a violet
  grew in that place the spring that foresaw its own doom.

  And this, a certain July from Iceland:
  a young woman of that place
  breathed it toward the south. It took root there.
  The colour ran true but the plant is small.

  This falling spray of snowflakes is
  a handful of dead Februarys
  prayed into flower by Rafael Arevalo Martinez
  of Guatemala.
                Here's that old friend who
  went by my side so many years: this full, fragile
  head of veined lavender. Oh that April
  that we first went with our stiff lusts
  leaving the city behind, out to the green hill--
  May, they said she was. A hand for all of us:
  this branch of blue butterflies tied to this stem.

  June is a yellow cup I'll not name; August
  the over-heavy one. And here are--
  russet and shiny, all but March. And March?
  Ah, March--
             Flowers are a tiresome pastime.
  One has a wish to shake them from their pots
  root and stern, for the sun to gnaw.

  Walk out again into the cold and saunter home
  to the fire. This day has blossomed long enough.
  I have wiped out the red night and lit a blaze
  instead which will at least warm our hands
  and stir up the talk.
                       I think we have kept fair time.
  Time is a green orchid.

1. Berket and the Stars
2. The Late Singer
3. March
4. Апология • Apology
5. Весна и все остальное • Spring and All

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