Bella Akhmadulina

1937 – 2010

Farewell

And I shall tell you at the end:
farewell, don't pledge self to love, helpless.
I go mad, or just ascend
to the high echelon of madness.

How had you loved? - You'd put aside
even the Death. But ‘tis not matter.
How had you loved? You'd done that right,
but you had had to do that better.

Hell of a blunder! I shall not
Forgive you else. It lives - my body -
it roams, sees the real world,
but just with emptiness it's loaded.

My mind yet makes its scanty work,
But arms had helplessly felled down,
and, likewise a small airy flock,
vanish aslant all smells and sounds.
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