A prayer for cats and dogs,
Little outcasts of being
That live in gutters and garbage dumps,
Homeless and stray, like me.
Little outcasts of being
That live in gutters and garbage dumps,
Homeless and stray, like me.
A prayer for these hungry sighs…
How many tears I have shed in life!
But beasts are silently displeased by God.
They don’t cry—just look into their angst.
How many tears I have shed in life!
But beasts are silently displeased by God.
They don’t cry—just look into their angst.
They look and look so long, so long, so long
And see a giant tear,
As if it were real, big as the Volga River,
A tear of beasts swells, and they swim in it.
And see a giant tear,
As if it were real, big as the Volga River,
A tear of beasts swells, and they swim in it.
They swim and smell the taste of evil slime,
The whirlwind is getting steeper, wild—
Those subtle paws have suffered so much pain
That one would like to touch death with them.
The whirlwind is getting steeper, wild—
Those subtle paws have suffered so much pain
That one would like to touch death with them.
To touch it like one touches knees,
Even perhaps to lick it secretly
In a somewhat hopeless frenzy
With their hot, rough tongues…
Even perhaps to lick it secretly
In a somewhat hopeless frenzy
With their hot, rough tongues…
A tear of beasts is as great as the Volga River,
Death will be drowned in it and so will doom,
So there is no more death, no God is here:
There’s only a feline Lord and dogs’ God.
Death will be drowned in it and so will doom,
So there is no more death, no God is here:
There’s only a feline Lord and dogs’ God.
A feline God that plays around with grandeur
And touches with its little paws its doom—
A little skein of golden indifference
With entangled threads in the tomb.
And touches with its little paws its doom—
A little skein of golden indifference
With entangled threads in the tomb.
A dog’s God lives in a garbage dump.
It is wretched, bold, and lame.
Yet the world is pardoned by beast’s suffering.
All is forgiven in garbage dumps. Amen.
It is wretched, bold, and lame.
Yet the world is pardoned by beast’s suffering.
All is forgiven in garbage dumps. Amen.
Tr. Ian Probstein. Written 1963. Blazhenny (it means “blessed”, with
overtones of a holy fool) lived a life of suffering in what is now Belarus. He
was born Veniamin (Benjamin) Eisenstadt into a Jewish family; he survived the Nazi
occupation and converted to Christianity. He was forbidden to publish in the
USSR and when not imprisoned in mental hospitals lived in extreme poverty. Several
of his poems identify, like this one, with stray and abused animals.
No comments:
Post a Comment