Kitabı oxu: «Dialogues»

To my teachers, the Kiev’s University Linguistics Department Professors Tatiana Evgenievna and Natalia Borisovna. To my family. To my friends and all I was blessed to know and talk with.

It was business from the very beginning in 2014, and I’ve dropped all personal as much as it was possible. It’s all about and for the one I’ve never seen or heard, or always seen and heard in all I talked with. It’s more this one than me, whose supposed initials gave me the letters to sign my ‘wordings’, which accidentally got the meaning if typed in Russian, МЫ, us.

It started with a question ‘do you know how the piano was invented?’. I ventured ‘someone dropped a harp and had his Eureka?’ Word after word, I answered ‘try me’ to that ‘epitome of challenge’ and was offered a piece in Hindi to “translate”. Being a translator by education, I took the task and with the Google Translator and other unfathomable help and means, for I’ve never known no Hindi, I had done what I could…That piece triggered the rest, a chain of talks and encounters, or the beads of jams rather. I’ve written them down as verses and short stories, thoughts and questions. What I was, a sheep, a flute, paper or a pen or any other tool? I don’t really know.

My birthday gift to my son. He turned 32.

12.10.2024, Moscow

Acceptance.

The pond is strewn with stones. Some boy just got overexcited with the process of contemplating waves he deemed to be the sole Creator… Alas, there is no pond, no more, but water found her way with grace in tinkling rivulets, went up, turned into clouds, came back as rains, joined seas, and oceans, no hurts and no regrets…

***

We ever are on different shores and never plunge. It’s always about reasons… What are we to each other? “Lesson vs blessing”, some books of exercises, or coaching dolls, afraid of getting soaked… whatever. Someday I’ll turn into a river, into a calm and slow one with lots of curves and turns. Oh, let me mirror beauty of the Earth, blue sky and birds and clouds of all colors, and stars at night. I’d breed some mermaids in my depth! Let me behold your face… My wish is to reflect your whole life, your friends, and family. And laughter of your kids, I wish, would ring between my banks. Just promise, you’ll come often, I want to see your smile.

***

November fogs… they come and shawl all nooks and crannies of the Earth. Her face gets white and smooth; she looks as if she was just born. Sometimes I wish they'd shroud all those bloody wars, all tears and fears, all ugly and polluting structures and machines, and midday winds would wipe it all without a tiny trace. Sometimes I crave those winds would carry me away wrapped tightly in that foggy shroud with all my silly, childish dreams and hopes… Please, let me this weak-kneed confession.

***

Лицемерие… Hypocrisy in Russian sounds like changing faces, or trying them on, like masks.

***

Three Parkas mastered their task through eras. One weaves, the other measures and the last one cuts the thread of life. Their work is pure improvisation, no attachments. One eye for all of them sees closely to it. The thread, the matter of your time is in your hands from birth. What will you do with it? Knots to remember or a shroud for your grave, clothes for your children bright and safe, a shawl to put on the shoulders of your mother or gifts for your beloved and friends? Or a canvas to paint the world you dream about and use all favorite colors…

***

It happened on a train. We never even talked. We were just looking into each other’s eyes all night, which seemed to last forever. We were so young… Our ways just touched and ran in different directions. We knew we’d never meet again and never would be able to forget each other. And maybe then I chose to dwell here often on my little station just seeing off and meeting trains. My friends and my beloved would come, bring new ideas and trends. Sometimes I wouldn’t recognize their faces, but with a cup of coffee and a talk I’d find that they are same, the way I loved them once. And they would always leave. Well… here I am enjoying silence, contemplating new thoughts and concepts I was left with. I’d send my thoughts into the sky like kites amazed at how they fly, how play with winds and draw sophisticated patterns around the Sun or Moon at night. I swear that nothing could distract me from being awed by the process, all seasons are my friends, all weather or conditions, even pain. And now pondering on thoughts which I unwrapped once as your gifts… yours are the first I can set free. I will remember how they soar.

***

What should be taught at schools? We are the fields where all wars start. We’re stuffed with definitions of what is good and evil weaved tightly into nets of morals, ethics, politics, religion. But what is evil here turns into good across the country border, sometimes across the fence of our neighbors. We grow up appreciating our borders, not our differences though.

***

I wonder how we will sound at our premiere… For now, I guess, it’s still a dress-rehearsal dragging on and on. We've got transfixed with polishing our parts, not listening to our neighbors… Will we be ever ready for the words announcing our opening night? Footlights are turning slowly to our conductor! We’ve just forgotten in his hands we will be confident and safe…

***

Here on the floor next to my sleepy cat which won’t be stirred by words spirituality, philosophy or art, reality unfolds to all his senses without editing or censorship; my eyes against the 3yo mark made by my father on the doorpost... It’s not a place of happy choice, indeed. Yet, it might be the closest to the level of unmarred perception of childhood, where I can hear the silence and recall what was forgotten long ago, forgive, let go, cry over and accept, jump to my feet again and run to share with the whole world my heart and soul!

***

I heard leaves rustling in the wind, I felt it like a whisper ‘I’m nobody, and I’m nowhere’. I thought, ‘Sometimes you have to live for half of a century to realize the things you’ve lived for years with: NOWHERE IS EVERYWHERE, NOWHERE MEANS EVERYWHERE!; and fall in awe of such simplicity and beauty and feel so thankful.

***

Some authors choose to deMONSTRate the others. Well, work is paid, booked, filmed, staged, Pulitzered and Oscared. We’d better deMONSTRate ourselves. This process is quiet, far from entertaining. But the results! Might add to positive statistics.’, I thought it was more reasonable and productive for both humanity and me. Antoine De Saint-Exupéry in his book wrote in unison, “You shall judge yourself, that is the most difficult thing of all. It is much more difficult to judge oneself than to judge others. If you succeed in judging yourself rightly, then you are indeed a man of true wisdom.

***

It’s such a pleasure travelling without luggage! Our “here and now” are so ephemeral possessions… The moment we forgot it we lost the art of flying. Jailed by weak bodies, chained with thoughts, surrendered to our hearts, we are left here with a gift of our ever flying, dreaming, and creative souls, birds singing in a cage. But look at some of our creations, listen to our songs… Are not them beautiful?

***

How do you know that all those shades of winter grey are melted by the Sun alone? Can you be sure that birds can’t hear us talking to our kids, “Soon very soon my boy they will be back! Soon… swallows will be graffitiing the skies and nightingales accompanying our dreams with their soothing songs in May”? And maybe woods and rivers are longing for our laughter, and fields are eager to ripen their crops for harvesters? Who knows what turns this world around? Who knows? I don’t, I’m simply contemplating...

***

- Please, tell me, river, you are not the same you were an hour ago?

- Says who?

- Says everyone for ages!

- It doesn’t matter seems, how many times you say same words, they won’t be a truth. I feel as young as born today and hope we don’t discuss my age here. So, what about you?

- Don’t know yet…

***

To make a painful choice and deal with a consequence, which never fails to follow? Stay faceguard down or go with the flow, with somebody’s advice, for shelter? Remember Amazons? Those used to mutilate right breasts to be the best at aiming. Hard choice or just the only way to go?

***

My answer used to look like turning of my head, brisk talk over my shoulder while walking, light on foot. And now… it looks like a maneuver as elegant as that of an aircraft carrier, the time of turning reasonably used to load a response.

***

Those moments when daylight is spreading wings still young and weak, unsure of own powers, yet making light of streetlamps just… excessive. And in the evening, fading into twilight, it kindles golden spheres to life again along with windows, candles, hearths of our dwellings. I love them all and wonder with a cup of coffee in the morning, if that is just routine of working shifts to them, or still the meeting they are looking for? No need to know for sure, though… Let stories of tomorrow be slightly new again.

***

I wish I knew a lullaby to soothe all hearts deprived. I wish a mere candlelight could warm them all at night. I wish we felt how sunlight melts all our fears. I wish we knew that wind with time will dry all our tears. I wish we could believe in power of simple words and had the faith that we can live without wars.

***

***

They say all words are just sea foam... What is sea foam? A joyful, careless daughter of the Wind and Water… If not for Her, what tide would look like or what would turn an ocean in terrifying awe at storms? And don't forget the beauty Venus once was born from sea foam too.

***

What if our voice has dual nature, both particles of thoughts and waves of sound? Sometimes we shout, but not because of anger. We shout because of hope. Waves smashed against the walls that separate us, yet particles might reach the aim in hearts and heads, or vice versa. It might take years, millenniums, or eras... Hope is eternal.

***

How often our dialogues die as a pair of monologues unheard… Some monologues survive with bitter knowledge that they were just unheeded parts of dialogs already dead. Which one survives? The one, which is strewn with quotes acknowledged or potential, or quotes are born acknowledged?

***

At times you drop the reins got lulled by hopes and dreams, caught in your thoughts… Blessed is the one, who’s got a friend, or stranger, or an angel flying by to get a nudge from, who’d tell you simple ‘Move. Your horse is getting fat and lazy in the shadows of a maze, you were the sole creator, the maze that’s weaved from your illusions. Move on!’

***

Don't close your heart. It’s big enough for all your memories to dwell. Right whiff of scent, right words, right music, and lo! Your memories are back, awaken! And you may cry and laugh again… With time you’ll find your tears are just same happy as your smile.

***

First drop of rain, first thunderstorm of Spring, first snow and first star that surfaces bright ink of evening skies; first tear… While kids we welcome them the very moment they come. We grow to wait for them with years and meet as something sacred, as our blessings or redemption. At times, as resurrection…

***

No matter that from time to time they’re out of touch. The youngest one would run ahead for calls he solely heard, or older one would stop to ponder…. They’ll meet again and share what they have learned, for feeling of their touch is dear to both.

***

Good will epitomized! Those simplest at times creations connecting us in noble silence, no bargaining, no threats, no flattery, no wiggling… They’re always waited for and live a long and decent life. The first to suffer from the hands of those who want to separate us. I wish our hands and words or treaties might be at least a half as trustful as the bridges!

***

My way to the beginning, a hundred thousand millenniums and miles along the road, that winds up to the Ocean shore. Its water is ringing, bright and clear. Deep lilac skies above. Enjoying every step. That's why I’ve been so long...

***

I'm thinking about feelings, those ugly ones, like pain, which nail us to the ground… I'm thinking about wars and those who die from wounds, from hunger, thirst and cold; about those who learned what REAL means - the last, and ultimate edition… I wonder if there is one, or many who can prevent or stop or do not to start at all, or simpler still not shoot, not pull the trigger... I pray you will get help the moment you might need it.

***

I hope you can embrace “the same” as a refrain of songs, that took your breath away; or when your shadow at sunset would point exactly to the East as a promise, as a sign that Sun and you will meet again tomorrow; or as another peaceful day, a day without war. The rest is ever changing.

***

New Spring is yet ephemeral… Not in my dreams or even thoughts, it’s rather feeling, and evasive either. Like freedom promised through bright patches in the dusty curtains of the clouds. March wind would tear at them and fly towards the patches of the blue in open skies above. My heart is with the wind, recalling warmer touches of the Sun, Green haze that shawls the trees in May and starry summer nights…

***

How can we choose the color of a dawn? It comes as Heaven’s gift each morning. It might be black or white, or “hundred shades of grey”, you won’t know the up from down and left with only gravity to trust before you take a step outside. It might be bloody red, or loud pink, or orange, or honey gold, and Moon is melting softly into pale blue of skies…They never come the same from under the creative brush of God’s imagination, His dawns… and His sunsets!

***

Dull, faded skies above, all colors are turning rusty, and only molten gold of a sunset sears the eyes… All sounds withered. Paint me some rain. Revive my silence with the songs of tinkling drops and ringing rivulets. Please, read me poems about rivers. They all are beautiful. Please, scent my nights with smells of our garden after storms. I know, you can…

***

The ratio of space we see while looking at the Earth and in the sky above is awesome. We’re rather scared by freedom opened by the vastness… We're often looking down, like searching for confinement in prisons of our minds and bodies, concepts, ideologies and views. One cage inside another and another... Are you still flying in your dreams at times? Why would you need more proof to know freedom?

***

They killed your Dream and at the funeral they sobbed, woeful. An ambulance was fatal, late to your ill Hope. You know, traffic… And by your own hand you cut the life support to Trust. Your Kindness got into a lunatic asylum. Yet here you are by embers in the hearth of your Belief, you, with your tears and smile and Love… That's how you have survived and will survive. With love.

***

Those precious patterns of the words mosaic, old as the world itself. Yet, colors are still fresh, gold, emerald, and turquoise. It doesn’t matter how you rearrange the pieces. Truth never fails to show itself in this Kaleidoscope of life.

***

Let it go, set it free… I have doubts about this… concepts. What is missing? I’m still in doubt, or I’ve just buried it too deep… We were friends from the first day of our first year as students. We turned into logical extension of each other. One started the sentence, and both of us finished it, always. Suddenly he turned his back on me, stopped talking at all, and I was shy to ask why. We were teens, and our connection was pure and innocent. In two months he was drafted and spent two years in the army.

He came to me the day he was back home, asked if we could be together again.

- But why did you leave me?

- I set you free.

- Why should you?

His answer… I can’t remember it. I’ve never told him, that I was heartbroken, turned rough, started smoking, rebelled against the whole world, against myself, above all - myself… Well, in short, why don’t ask for consent, or at least let know?

***

У Мамы всегда был маленький блокнот, куда она записывала понравившиеся цитаты, важные цифры, нужные номера телефонов, другими словами, все, что нельзя забыть. В детстве я любила листать его. Это высказывание Конфуция осталось со мной на всю жизнь. «Счастье - это когда тебя понимают, большое счастье - это когда тебя любят, настояeщее счастье - это когда любишь ты.»

*My Mom used to keep a notepad in which she wrote important sums, telephone numbers, some quotes not to forget. I loved reading it. There was a Confucius quote I loved the most ‘He is happy, who’s understood; he’s very happy, who’s loved. Yet, real happiness is to love.’

***

Look at the picture and enjoy it, can’t you? You always look for meaning, do you? When darkness comes and someone's helpful hand turns on the light… It helps to guess the meaning of the lamps, does it? ‘Shine on’ if asked, enjoy the weather for the rest of time.

***

It’s always about loss they say… I’d say it’s loss of the ground surface and fall you can’t control. It shows in your demeanour, face, your… everything! Yet, seems your closest won’t notice. They look at you as if through foggy glass. And you, you won’t lie, you just… won’t say away the truth. Who knows, what separates you? If something’s meant to happen, it will happen.. Well…feel falling? Make a decent face and persevere.

***

Like honey, deep yellow air of sunny evenings. Long shadows on the ground...Dense silence of the city before the weekend. And people with their dogs are still on emerald-green lawns. I like the feeling of being frozen in that amber light…

***

The most delicate, fragile is the fabric of harmony. It’s weaved of precious threads, of love and pain, of care and kindness… It’s difficult to weave just as it’s difficult to love, be kind and honest, worry and forgive. It is so very easy to destroy.

***

‘No strings attached’, he offered. She returned, ‘no strings attached, no music’.

***

As much as we are different those people, who had died in World War II and us, crippled badly by civilization, more cynical, less fit… We are as much the same. If needed we will rise, take arms and fight for our country.’ My Son was 15 when he said. I looked into his eyes, I knew, it might take longer and be bloodier… But in the end, we’ll win no matter what it takes.

***

We got so close in those 900 days and nights of Leningrad blockade, my death and I. I didn't even have to outstretch my hand to feel His face. I had acquired His traits and features to survive - got numb, not screaming under bombing; turned blind while looking on dead bodies in the streets so calm and peaceful as if sleeping; grew deaf to tears and moans of dying friends and relatives; fell into senseless limbo to adjust with those incessant cold and hunger… Why I survived… To say those words again and yet again? Alas… Who feels my words? Who can…

***

Another spring, still young… Green haze that shawled the trees a week ago turned into stars and constellations, grew dense… and lo, now those are bright emerald leaves, which donned up gracefully their lanky trunks and branches. Can’t get enough of it, and savoring this magic transformation…

***

We are so human with our pets as we should be to our fellow humans. It’s just relations paradise! We look into their eyes, we wait for their answers, not interrupting… More understanding, laughing at the words we think they’d utter in response. No posing, no offence, we feel like being ourselves. Just saying it away and feeling grateful even if the answer is the silence…

***

Our swallows are back again. Like a sign, we've been forgiven, like a promise of another Summer. You know, this promise has never been broken yet...

***

Don't let me go. Don't send me into the exile of freedom. And even if you do, I know, you have to. I'll stay, I'll wait, I'll always be over here for you…

***

My ultimate addiction, this planet, I’ve hardly seen and know, yet love. This awesome world, its gorgeous patterns and mighty wilderness of nature. Its people, “perfectly imperfect” … God’s only matter of concern, eternal inspiration!

***

Keep talking, tell me all the stories on the earth, I’ve heard you know all of them, but one. This one, unfolding gracefully for us to contemplate. You weren’t ready, were you?

***

She came with smell of mown grass left drying in the sun. She brought a fair and windy day into his attic. She left. He stayed to wait for the smell of rain next time.

***

Wrapped in black folds of darkness white face of Moon shone brightly till the morning. Now, sparkling blanket of the Night is thrown away and slipping slowly behind the horizon; and Moon is melting in the hands of Sun on bare blue sheets of skies.

***

She rises up into the sky to kiss her love to the Sun and turns ephemeral like dreams. She plays with winds. They’re painting clouds all day long till darkness comes. In the embrace of night she falls back down to the Earth to sleep all cold and calm, she turns into sparkling dew to mirror sky and stars above to dream about the Sun.

***

The Sun was fighting rough and stormy clouds chased by the winds of June. I’ve closed my eyes. The dark was changing hue from bright light yellow, lighter still, to orange and maroon… Just like my memories of you.

***

You've filled me with your words and poems, your thoughts and songs, you've filled me up with you. Your care and mastering were too ascetic. Your riddles were too teasing; they put me under showers of doubts too cold. You've got me broken in embrace too strong. Not whole anymore. I can't be filled. I'll always be thirsty...

***

He did it with his eyes “wide closed”. He thought about his “goals”. I’d better he enjoyed the process… Oh, my Pygmalion. Seems, I’m your greatest disappointment. Well, time and weather polish flaws and drawbacks, and I will fall in love with time and weather.

***

And If I grow some enemies along the way I won’t spend my life awaiting when the river would carry their bodies to nowhere past me. You’ve taught me to enjoy all simple things the way they are, not as utility or means to please my ego.

***

Enchanted by the smell of nettles, and jasmine, and linden. Your skies, that rest in waters still as mirrors. Like dragonfly in ember, I’m getting molded into your honey-yellow evenings, young July.

***

There’s always been that silent force which soldiers are not frightening, not frightened. The army of dreamers who see this world as a much better place. Oh, you’ll be conquered sooner than you recognize and realize their mighty power.

***

Призывная комиссия в Мариинской больнице, Санкт-Петербург. Анкета одного из призывников. В графе диагноз написано «звездная болезнь». Боец, несомненно.

*The draftee health assessment Commission in Mariinsky hospital, Sankt-Peterburg. A draftee writes ‘star syndrome’ in a ‘disease’ line in his profile paper. Well, semper fi.

***

It was my life with you, you were my heaven, my only comfort zone. Yet, no one is allowed to stay. And now, behold, they call it miracles over here, love, harmony and beauty, and peace… They don’t believe in miracles, too.

***

We are here, still loved and gifted. We are taught and helped; we’ve never been given up on. It’s time for us to learn from our kids to tolerate and help our neighbors, to guard and spare this planet; to bring our children to this world to love and teach and help them, not only to respect us, and fulfill our cravings, worship our idols, keep the fire in the lamps of our cults, and dust our iron cast and rusting frames of comprehension.

***

They are just servants to Almighty Gravity. They gladly let you down: air, water; earth treacherously turns into quick sands; time changes people into lines of words on their tombstones and grinds our words along with our beliefs and concepts, our trust and courage into dust. Time proves that there’s only Gravity to trust.

***

To love one just the way one is… You’ve sifted me through the grates of whims and standards to find the gold in me, disintegrated me to atoms selecting only oxygen of me. And in the end, you’ve loved the chaos left, of which you were the sole creator.

***

Like winds between the Earth and heaven, like clouds in the sky, like river waters or leaves of aspens on a quiet evening I dance to my own music. You cannot hear it, you cannot see my partner.

***

No matter, have you got your status from your birth, worked hard to earn, or sold your soul for it… If there is no reason you would give it up for, you are same slave as those born into castes and customs and sold for money with a brand traditionally burnt in their flesh.

***

Afar from time and space we meet and love. We fall in time and space if we depart. That’s when we learn to notice time and space. We cross the days from our existence; we count the days until we meet again.

***

Don’t mourn for me. I’ll never stop to be the best example of most healthiest defiance. You’d better help. Sincerely, The Earth.

***

I contemplate your vastness, I beg to help me see, to cure my deafness, numbness of my limbs. You put me into a paddling pool of patronizing pity. Your condescension won’t love its own child, my cute defiance. I leave for barren plains. Pale skies and August silence are so near, And I’m already longing for September.

***

Стою у открытого окна, ломаю батон, кормлю голубей. Вдруг утренний, хрипловатый, не было еще чаю с плюшкой, голос: «Прекращайте их кормить, вы их кормите, а они мне всю машину обгадили».

Закрываю окно. Ну, верно, давайте перестанем кормить голубей и бездомных кошек, давайте срубим деревья, закатаем всю планету в асфальт, пусть вашей машине будет хорошо.

Окно открою позже, когда уедут машины, без нас, людей, на планете тоже нельзя, наверное…

*The window is open, I’m feeding bread crumbles to some birds; a voice all of a sudden, ‘stop feeding them, all my car is covered in their excrements.’

I close the window. Sure, I think, let’s stop feeding birds and stray animals, let’s cut all trees and cover the whole planes with asphalt, let’s do anything to please your cars.

I’ll open the window again later, when all cars leave. This world won’t exist without people, probably… At least for people…

***

If I'd be your creation, I'd say through tears and smiles of those who would behold me, ‘Oh, thank you Master’. Listen!

***

So gorgeous a word ‘to share’. To share the road means to be ready to go together and respect the different speed of others, their different directions. And it implies some plenty, always! Five loaves of bread were quite enough to fill five thousand pairs of hands. Sometimes it means ‘to take’. To take one’s pain and tears, and grief. To have enough of heart to hurt for others.

***

Lo, morning fogs hush dreams and secrets of my tired Summer; listen, whispers of the wind in fields now barren are no more; and evening choruses of frogs and songs of brooks went silent. My swallows are still here, with me, and their chirping makes louder the quietness of August.

***

Depression.

I made a hole of Moon on sooty glass of sky. Come, have a look. Come closer, till you feel a draw, you'll feel like a kitten taken into that warm house on the hill right from a frozen dump. It’s all that charcoal colour of the sky enchanting me… Thanks for the falling star you’ve sent. It looked like the gleamy line left by a match that won’t ignite, won’t budge to fire. Ah, silly thing, they’ll throw you away…

***

Don't be afraid to loosen your grip, let go of a straw you call "forever"; go, take that dive. You'll catch the wind and never doubt its hands or own wings again. You will appreciate sensation in your chest, it tastes of freedom. You won't betray this feeling ever to any fear or hesitation.

***

I listened to your heart, so ever genuine and gorgeous silence. You’ve listened mine: so ever chirping, ticking days and weeks, and marking months and seasons, celebrating years; and telling you incessant stories of my mornings, singing lullabies for night. You listened to me and smiled, you knew, that all my stories are your own silence. That’s where all sounds, rhythms and words and music of the world are born.

***

Music is the most beautiful face of Silence.

***

That gorgeous dance of black and white, of good and evil, shadow and light, of stars and space behind the window of the sky. Myself and silence, my best partner and listener forever. We’ve never needed any words to fill the void between us. There’s never been a void.

***

My August is wearing off, and silence fills the skies and fields; and shadows of the trees turn lace-like, leaves become transparent. Web necklaces sparkle with the morning dew. Now Nature looks so feminine. She’s taking off her gorgeous attires. She hangs them all around the room just to admire one more time before she hides them in her treasure chest for winter. They fill the whole house with the scents of Autumn.

***

My memory, tenacious, greedy, it spares each slightest detail. They grow sweet with time, the others hurt, bring bitter tears again. To the beginning of this story though… I wished once to forget and let it go, be born as new next morning. My prayer’s heard, I died that very moment.

***

I’m torn between two loves: my love towards the noise of life, the sounds of the world and love of silence I have known once and had to leave and fell in love with every time we met again and treasure our every meeting. I savour every minute given…

***

Late September. Thin ice on water faces in the morning, fragile as wings of dragonflies. It can be broken, seems, by a mere thought or melted by a wistful look of a stranger. Ice of your face, it’s broken too, and tears are freed by thoughts about someone dear...

***

You’ve learned and known me by heart. Of course, you’ve written me, word after word… You’ve given me your words, your voice. How can you still discern the point you end and I begin?

***

Those summer rains that soothe the heat of July sun, yet never make you open your umbrella. You savor them, you know for sure they’d only last enough for you to breathe bright scented air and rest your eyes in sudden twilight of noontime…

***

I wonder if our most sincere faith is simply our visceral knowledge we have not recognized yet? …

***

You’ve never said hello and your goodbyes I’ve always felt like final ones. You’ve always left me open, like your workbook. You gave me all your words. You rebelled Time. I just was lucky…

***

She comes as sadness first and settles in your heart in August. Then silence in the fields and orchards follows; skies turn deprived of summer songsters. She gifts us fragrances of forests and tastes of harvest in September. She bursts in colours of October as parting fireworks. Ah, Autumn comes in waves, like my incessant hope.

***

Make sure it's not your laurel wreath you add into your soups while cooking, leaf after leaf... as common spice... Oh, woman.

***

Sunlight on dancing water waves… smooth, slick, no rush, bright, blinds the eyes. Boats, people are black shadows against that liquid light. Yet, it’s a trick of your perception. Don’t you get blinded trying to discern one’s features against the light. You have to wait when light will fall upon the face and open one’s true colours. Takes time, worth waiting for!

***

In fair memory of Alan Kurdi.

They say our life is chain of our choices. What differs us from a drowned kid? You think it was his choice? Or maybe water chose to make his last inhale so ever painful without any mercy? What triggers our delusion we ever have any choice at all?

***

Same elements, same atoms… Dead trees - wood smells so sweet? Dead people - why they don’t? Our conscience, our thoughts both good and evil? Or something that was good in essence, but date of use expired; or words “I love you” never said, neglected talents, dreams betrayed?

***

How close you are to the truth, if friends seem enemies, and enemies seem friends…

***

Love carved roses from the stone of my heart. Birds of my dreams nestle among the flowers.

***

First snowflakes chase red fox of Autumn into the depths of woods. October.

***

Black raven, darkness, savouring white grains of stars behind my window… It’s genuine delight to contemplate the process. Majestic dignity in every move. Head slightly bent, he blinks at me, his eye is Moon itself. I watch him leaving, and my reflection’s getting lost in his dark pinions…

***

He opens His hands, surrenders you to life, and whispers in your ear, ‘Remember, life is good.’ You never doubt those words; you know them by heart while you are a kid, but then forget… Until the moment He would touch your shoulder, ‘It is time to leave’. Your memory would prompt you, life WAS good. And you agree, ‘Indeed, it was just like you’ve promised…

***

The most simple question never answered: what power makes our hearts pump blood through tight and tired veins? What makes us breathe, spins vortexes of stars and planets? What’s Mighty that creates and contemplates the beauty of the process in silence or humming softly magic tunes no one was able to put in notes yet? Why won’t we follow precious example and fall in silence much more often. Unlikely silence ever started any wars...

***

Eternal inspiration, or a secret of creation? What’s implemented: power or love? Can you revive a piece of foil? You’d smooth it or make wrinkles of the waves or draw the circles like from stones thrown, yet cannot turn into a river, alive and difficult to shape along with naughty mood of yours.

***

Wind casts the net of tattered clouds and draws the Sun from skies so early. Old October. My childish longing for the summer to return is dying along with embers of maples fading among the ashes of the woods. No rescue there from coming winter. Embrace me, please. My hope for spring is safer in your hands.

***

Look at the harmony of whole. See how two parts connected turn into opposite directions, confront each other. Seems, only confrontation keeps that bond…might be this whole world together.

***

The brightest memories from years there, behind the Polar Circle… Short autumn, coloured with soft, pastel, earthly colours mixed in the most exquisite fashion. It comes with the end of August, early September. Polar nights, the Sun pops up for an hour about 11 am, just above the Urals and falls back as if blinded by his own reflection in endless snows… Clear skies with stars bring frost. Snowstorms with winds up to 20-30 meters per second rise the temperature up to -10C, and we would usually go for a walk in the park after them. To you and all the people from continent, as we used to say there, our park would look barren rather. Tundra.

Spring is like life explosion! Nature waits for a certain number of days of agreeable temperature as if to make sure; and then, overnight, the rupture of bright young leaves on short tundra-type birches and willow bushes, and bursts of white marsh-tea flowers all over the smooth hills. Rivers and rivulets return to life. Strange thing, their waters are of brown tints there, but the ice is so pure in its transparency… The snow will hide till the middle of July in nooks and crannies of the hills though.

Polar day; the Sun just won’t leave the sky descending habitually to the Urals but only to get the prop for a new rise. The Sun in summer was in our window at midnight. Once, a new curtain decided to budge to gravity and fell down. Sunlight rushed into the room so abruptly, it seemed we heard the explosion of light invasion. We still laugh when we recall our panic… Job routine was hard there, but we were young and nothing was difficult at that age, we could move mountains.

***

You called me River. You would come and listen to my stories, enjoy our gentle touch. You learned my shallows. I would hide the crushing pressure of my depth. And then one day you left. Well, water gets its biggest power when there’s no ground to rely upon, abyss ahead and wild exciting plunge, a mighty waterfall to contemplate in awe. Well, thanks for that exciting part of my eternal journey to the ocean.

***

Your world collapsed again, crashed into smithereens. Don’t look under your feet at broken pieces all around. No whole picture anymore, no way to know old black from white, each tiny particle reflects your face in tears. Look up, ahead, there still are stars, and moon, there’ll be new dawn… That’s just a habit of all worlds to fall and rise again from time to time.

***

I dream your poems at night and surely get lost among your words and pictures, and evasive glimpses of your face in fragile light of moon still young. I breathe the hell and touch the bliss of heaven in your hands. My wake-up words to you, ‘good morning, life!’

***

That's where I met my swallows, in the city of "too many and too much of everything": Too many buildings, temples, people which won't leave the streets till early morning. The universe of sounds, smells, street food, stray cats of Istanbul. Too many faces, each reminds you somebody you've met, you used to know and love, but then your hope would gasp for life from grief – ah, you’ve mistaken… That feeling is almost painful on these shores.

Bosporus strait and mild green hills belong here, and seagulls are true hosts; and dwellers of the city seem to know it well. They live in a world that ever changes its face. They let it fade away, they love its ruins to live among, to contemplate…

***

What if you think you are not the archer, but an arrow in the hands that know the purpose, won't tremble from some feeble thoughts, or bout of self-pity? You then might feel the real taste of freedom, enjoy the flight and find the aim without any hassle. Just let your ego have a rest for once…

***

Black lace of naked branches against grey vista of the sky, just like a mourning veil with delicate embroidery of raindrops, incessant tears of sad October.

***

Last leaves on trees. November treasures them as a broke would treasure his last coins… The most cherished, the most difficult to spare, the hardest to give away forever.

***

Kids know all questions on this Earth, and only kids know all the answers. They definitely know, where real excitement hides!

***

Late Autumn turned the water of my River cold and heavy, yet calm and crystal clear. And so alone... Her banks are silent, empty now. Till summer She will sleep and contemplate the darkness of her depth.

***

I bring all fruits from seeds you've sown, Almighty Silence, with thanks, for you to sow it further. You never claimed the harvest, though. I bow my head, I'm on my knees. You’ve never asked that, too…

***

They say that darkness flees the light. Yet, they are wrong. She’d stay and face the light and let the myriads of rays pierce her with both: tremendous pain and rapture. Aware, they can’t exist without each other, they celebrate the triumph of the union.

***

You made my days too short for life itself, you filled them up with self, with cold; you robbed the sky from Sun. I thought you were my Night, you said you were my Winter.

***

‘Good morning!’, her heart knocked loudly on his chest.

***

You get them right into your hands the moment you are born. Love, friendship, talents, peace, but never learn to use them… Believe me, all you have to do is simply keep them, treasure in your palms like candlelight on stormy day. Yet, you would say the weight is much too heavy. You drop those gifts one after other, to seize some easy money, easy work, some pleasure close at hand, or armament to fight for your ambitions…

***

Dull rain and darkness paint "the starry night" on puddles of November. I wonder if Van Gogh had learnt from them…

***

Gods themselves had trouble handling it, the power of genuine love. By separating they meant to spare us, might be. Cruel mercy though…

***

You left me once but every moment of my life since then I feel you are leaving me, for countless times already. Can one get used to being left again and yet again? Can silence turn more loud? Yours added to the silence of old friends and graves of those I treasure…

***

They guarded peace, they swore to sacrifice their life for peace, the soldiers. And now you try to use their death to sell us war, another war and yet another… a solid reason for war to never end.

***

Some drawings of me are flattering, some mean, or envious and mocking. Some are just mediocre, flat. You shouldn’t try to reach beyond the Mighty. He painted me so perfectly, he used most gorgeous colors, his hand was steady, free. He loved me all the way I am. He ran his fingers gently over my lines in wonder what’s within.

***

Might be, Hope is a posthumous child of the most gorgeous couple on Earth: Knowledge and Faith…

***

Let your cat catch your pain on its tail. Let your cat fetch your pain in the yard. Let your cat lose your pain in the grass. Let night bird, hunting prey, catch your pain with its wing. Let night bird fetch your pain to the woods. Let night bird lose your pain in the brambles. Let the bear chomp all berries away from the bush. Let the bear catch your pain with its paws. Let the bear fetch your pain to the lake dark and deep. Let the bear wash your pain all away in the waves. Let the fish catch your pain with its tail. Let the fish fetch your pain to the depth. Let the fish hide your pain under stones on the bed of the lake. Let this story cure, soothe all your aches. Sleep my child, have a rest till new day.

***

I wish we let our children play with our concepts, notions and ideas along with their toys and listen carefully to their opinion. I wonder, how it’ll change the way our progress goes…

***

In company with Angels I hold my breath to listen silence, you created. They envied all you offered me to savor. Tamed Time and Space laid curled up timidly under my feet. They promised me all Grace of Heaven; you promised nothing, and I stayed with you.

***

‘How is it to be happy? What does it mean?’ he asked. She paused, ‘Don't know… I would say it's fine by me to be unhappy.’ He sighed, ‘Please, teach me.’

***

The Sun and Moon and Spring return again and yet again as if they know the fundamental reason to return; and songs of birds are never hopeless, desperate… With trust in them I follow.

***

Not good at praying, but I know, you listen. Day after day I plant into your perfect silence the idea of a world without wars. I guard you in your sleep, your aching heart, your tired mind. I cry for you all tears you can’t afford to show. I soothe your fretting disappointments and I retell you all your dreams you’ve given up on.

***

A string of beads, old gems, a gift from ancestors. It’s a perfect circle, no end and no beginning. I know by heart all imperfections of the stones, I see all their colors with my eyes closed; and all are treasured, there’s no favorites, none ever to be thrown away. That is my life, day after day. I'll give it as a gift to my descendant once.

***

Respect of others depends not on your virtue, but on the virtues of others.

***

How comes they would get separate, my mind and body, soul and God? It’s like an illustration from the book, Geometry Descriptive, the whole being cut apart by plains of rigid concepts, theories, and credos. I wonder, how 2-dimensional whatever, lacking height or depth, might triumph?

***

Please, let me out of those blinding city nights into the darkness that would cure my tired eyes, where silence deafens, and starry skies would pierce my heart with pain returning me to life.

***

Oh, what an evening! Please, come in, take off your mask. How is the world outside? No vine, vine makes me sober. Let’s savor our silence instead. Is that moonlight got tangled in your hair?

***

They were two books that shared eternity together on the same shelf, neither tired from their touch, nor aware what’s inside of each other…

***

We’ve got enough to feed all hungry, shelter strays, stop wars, find compromise and end all conflicts. Why don’t we?

***

We're longing for new spring. We hurry rainy February days, and stormy evenings, those are like chestnut horses, leaving prints of their hooves on crispy morning roads. And in revenge they'd take away whatever we neglect, forget, let go, except our debts... Make sure you keep them close, your dearest…

***

How many turns His signs must dance around for you to see the world He once created as it is and realize the mess we add by our hypocrisy and judgments? Same things are either bad or good and bad again, depends on what we want to gain, what profit… I wish we were like kids that throw a handful of sand into each other if insulted; then fumes subside, and they are friends again. Oh, adults are so very serious about what to throw, and those are often bombs and bullets, wars and hunger, chaos… I wish we’d learn from our children, too…

***

Here only some of us survive. The rest are feeding the statistics…

***

- What’s that behind that song?

- There’s something never lost but never found either.

- What’s that behind your smile?

- My heart that hasn’t stopped but failed to start and finally surrendered to painful fibrillation of my life without someone.

- What’s that behind your eyes?

- It’s candlelight of hope that quivers often lately.

- What’s that you are looking for behind the clouds, water surface, starry skies, tall trees, horizon, time?

- My dreams, my questions answered…

***

I wonder if I’ll ever find them, all those words you scattered around the world, in thousands of books and songs along my life like beads of broken necklace? I wonder if I’ll ever thread them back to treasure and keep the precious pattern of your gems as legacy to leave; or will I break the thread again, in my own turn?

***

Tell me the difference between pure light and darkness, both make you blind; or fire and heavy frost, you can get burnt by both. Same goes with good and evil, seems. It’s our response framed rigidly by senses and perception. How can we change this?

***

You've sent me to the Past of yours. Again. You know how I’ve survived before? I've stayed in Present of my own.

***

Patience is a virtue of those enduring life. Time is the asset for those in a hurry.

***

Please, let me hold your hand, and take you from your end to your beginning, and let me wrap the time around your tired shoulders as a shawl. Please, let me stay forever.

***

It’s a manipulator who'd outstretch his hands to a puppet, never vice versa. Now, who is a slave here?

***

On top of food chain... But what is our place in soul food chain?

***

He opened his eyes, and saw her face, and felt his hands in hers. ‘Wake up. I heard you crying in your sleep, don't worry, it was just a nightmare...’ she said. ‘It was a nightmare. There’s never been you, nowhere…’ He answered.

***

‘I love the words’, you say… You seem to know right way to cook them. I used to have them fresh. The aftertaste at times was bitter, though.

***

You are either busy labeling waves, or you just surf them.

***

Along with April, cautious and shy, I’m aching for the Sun. And trees are wearing only clouds yet. Low skies lie heavy on my shoulders; suffocating, I want to tear them off.

***

Old Tide fell tired once. Same shore, same sand and same light-minded foam... Same waste He had to carry on his shoulders from the depths. And suddenly he heard the girl, she bent to Him, she was caressing his grey curls, ‘You must be ever young. The ornaments and patterns you paint on sand for us are never same.’

***

The Ocean might look the same for you… But with the Sun, that spills the whole world and skies all over the Ocean surface every morning, breaks into millions sparkles or melts in its serene waves; and with the wind so ever pushing, chasing or caressing; and Moon that draws a road to heaven on the water each moment turns precious and unique…

***

Most sentences for me look better if adorned with question mark, or any other shade of doubt.

***

I’ve never had to part with love and faith and hope; I always walk around with my eternal unicorn; they think all my possessions are so ever non-existent. How can they see…and steal them from me?

***

How many days of war it takes to notice that stars look like the holes from bullets in the black backdrop of skies? A month or years? How many years of peace restored it takes to see them back as awesome?

***

And Spring young bride takes off her white attire along with naughty temper of a girl and puts on sweet contentment of a young wife along with rich and bright green clothes of young Summer.

***

The fragrance of wild cherries on the 9th of May in 1945 was suffocating. We were 20 million short of those who might enjoy it...

***

We learned to close our eyes to people’s pain, injustice, grief; we tamed the pangs of our conscience, our tears and other symptoms of divinity, those are too acute for us in either grace or suffering. How would we cope with scientific proof of God's existence they are busy looking for? In Gravity we trust, but not because of scientific proof! We never are afraid to fall from planet's surface...

***

Not all of us have enough to invest, but all of us have enough to share.

***

***

The world was drawing a picture of me. Drew, edited, erased the part it would not like, year after year rejecting first my mind, my heart, then burden of emotions, my speech till there was nothing left except an empty page of paper.

***

Wind travels all the Earth. He kisses water and caresses grass, plays hide-and-seek in woods and laughs with birds... He dips his brush in rivers, seas and oceans, and paints his memories on the canvas of the sky with clouds.

***

Why won’t we use more often the anesthetic power of silence?

***

Your loneliness might prove to be the best friend ever. It never will betray or leave you.

***

June comes, and ships of houses go travelling green oceans of Summer.

***

‘Do you believe me?’ he asked. ‘I do. But only once I’d trust such answer if I were you. Trust was invented by the first who was about to lie, I think’, she answered.

***

I wish you’d listen to the rain. The thunder would come first, the sounds of pure awe, dense, deafening, not thin like those stirs and coughs and laughs suppressed politely just before the concert. I wish you would embrace rough touches of the wind. Then lightning makes your eyes alert and seeking the horizon for other sights of Mighty will. And you'd be longing for raindrops to feel the taste of skies by skin and lips. You’d breathe and savor once again the smell of earth and rain.

***

For so many people the only homelike warmth is a charity blanket.

***

Every day of our life is “near to death experience”.

***

The precious lace of Barcelona… weaved from the finest tissue of sophisticated thoughts of genius architects and dreams of Calliope and sycamores’ shadows.

***

I wonder, if you’ve ever noticed how hurting body makes you love life and hurting mind makes you love death?

***

Two people meant to be together for never. Two people grieving deeply to be apart for life.

***

How many times the bridge made from all weapons of the world might belt the Globe? We all would be connected in all directions...

***

He said, ‘Take Summer as my gift.’ He put the necklaces of morning dew around her neck and wrapped her in the finest laces that looked like sunny sparkles on the brightest blue of midday river. He laid soft grass under her feet and shawled her into warm and lavish greens. She loved it.

***

It takes all five of our basic senses to notice any slightest difference between us, appreciate it, learn, respect or benefit from it like kids or animals would do. It takes an intellect to make a cause for arguments and conflicts and new wars in case we find a difference, a deviation from a norm of our own.

***

You think He looks like deaf to pleadings, blind to wounds and heartless to your pains. He cares like any loving father does. He won’t help if you can cope yourself.

***

Last August days, like no man’s land between the summer gone and autumn coming, they feel like endless evenings, quiet, yellow, honey-like… Sun streaming down tree branches looks too tired, longing for the night embrace.

***

How many messages and books and talks turned into fallen leaves; just quiet rustle of pages with the letters deprived of meaning, love and life forever?

***

‘I wonder if there is a picture of universal beauty, which would look perfect for everyone, no matter time, or country, set of minds?’ he mused. She smiled, ‘Whatever, if the peace is pictured…’

***

If there were any unquestionable theory on this planet, it would be the truth, and there would be only one left. But there are so many theories around...

***

Some of us live up to their words. You've always lived up to your silence.

***

Sky looks grotesque, and flight of birds - bizarre. Wind desperately tries to talk to them, but they are falling into sleep: last dance of the October Wind and fallen leaves is full of tears and hopeful questions, and answers faint and never to the point. He asks again and yet again but knows he’ll never hear the words he waits for. His hands are empty, he's dancing all alone.

***

We litter our rivers, turn them into gutters, dump their shores, mar godlike blue of their faces. If only we could hear them praying, ‘Don't turn away from me, you’d better bury me alive...'

***

With time you'll understand that no one ever was as cruel to you as yourself.

***

Take God's example. Pains of creation followed but routine of mastering his craft, and listening to same complains and mending same malfunctions, and then at rare moments of the rest enjoying his creation so ever same and every time unique…

***

I wonder if the reflection of the world is true in quiet waters…

***

Shadows in the gardens are getting thin, and shafts of sunlight turn into a harp for winds to play the music for September’s empty skies.

***

I'd decorate with those that usually serve, and use the ones which decorate to serve you...

***

Tears traces are not frightening like those from bullets, no wounds that threaten lives are left. Yet souls are bleeding in silence from the gashes that might turn lethal for our hearts…

***

November parks and forests feel like summer cabins left for winter. All shutters closed, no curtains, no little things that decorate the rooms, and soon the hostess will cover furniture with plain white canvas till new summer.

***

Like autumn leaf, I fell into the river, got soaked with cold November waters, drowned, reached the bottom, and river flows past me. I'm always left behind, and I'm ahead on her eternal way…

***

Seems, people tend to shorten stories of their failure to one word… Like word "a whore" which was created by a man who failed to make a goddess of his woman...

***

Sincere answers to the question 'why would you do that?' are given by people rarely older than five years old.

***

There still are places over here where our childhood was staying all those years, intact. Just turn around the corner of Autumn… Can you remember how easy was it to get up is case you fell, and run again?

***

You might eventually find what you are looking for: love, friendship, truth or peace, whatever… I never knew what I was looking for, and when I’ve found, the only name sufficed was ‘daily bread’ I won’t survive without.

***

What can we share with our children? All rubbish we would throw around, exhausted planet and diseases we created ourselves, incessant wars we have no will to end? Religions, our moral laws, discredited and mocked at, or arts turned into slaves of money? They should reject the gift…

***

The end of toilet paper still in your fingers, but naughty roll breaks free from clumsy hand, and whole structure of handy and otherwise quite timid thing unfolds under your feet. And you, converted in a sage same instant, would say at last, ‘Why haven’t let it go at once, you silly…’

***

Seems, time is dense… most solid force dividing people, impartial, so difficult to reason with. How many friendships, loves, devotions succumbed to it.

***

December Wind got trapped by pearly skies so ever flawless gray felt hopeless, turned to weaving dragons, birds, winged dancers out of the chimney smokes to entertain himself. December Sun went hiding in the maze of city streets. If you should meet Him on a frozen crossroad, what an embrace of all his rays you’d get. December days got short like a waltz of snowflakes caught in the light of streetlamps. Got lost in winter, we are…

***

Sure, I could get you to the other safer shore or Heaven, if only you could take me just the way I am.

***

Your heart remembers well the price of immortality: dare take the poison of the sorrows, pains and evils of the world to walk the water, time and space. Yet, why blue color of the Shiva throat looks just like the rope trace on Judas' neck?

***

He sure might bring you a stormy year, yet with the hardships He would send two wings to carry you across the misty valley of bitterness and loss, and friendly shoulders you could hide your tears on. That is the way He is.

***

The best of wordings might fall victim to our crippled perception.

***

You taught me well to take my life and you, my happiness, my grief, by tiny sips, no gulps. Like old and precious wine. That’s how it would be cure, not poison…

***

Same twinkling lights of festive decoration, which made you smile and brought new hopes, would make you sad when holidays are gone... No doubt they will serve and shine next Christmas and bring joy as ever. Well, take as an example, ‘just shine if asked’, if not - get and enjoy some rest.