Dmitry Blizniuk 

(translated by Sergey Gerasimov)

Selected by Guest Editor for Poetry Yahya Frederickson

Followed by Bio and Q&A

Sense of Snow

The first snow has fallen today in the garden.

The black brain of the dirt,

mellowed by ants,

and the curlicues of still green grass

and piebald leaves

are beautifully strewn with white feathers.

Like angels had a pillow fight,

their claws tearing the white cloth with a quiet crackle.

The snow has come today as a stranger

innocent, tender,

a fluffy Trojan foal.

It's leaping around, playing, pretending to bite

my fingers spread wide apart.

And my soul rejoices

regardless of logic

or common sense,

even if it's all just elevating lie,

waltzing me around,

while camel colts of childhood

are peeping through the eye of a needle.

I'm taking the dwarfish garden in:

a black, bony cherry tree

has caught its second wind;

it's blooming almost like in spring;

it's caught a flock of hungry sparrows

on the spinning rods of its branches.

Here, in November,

amid the cooled inferno,

the first snow is gorgeous

like a white whale

surfacing from below the dirt.

Ahab lingers, but still,

points his harpoon away.

I'm Atlas in a down padded coat,

and I'm lifting the heavy sky with my eyes:

the black and blue barbell fringed with white

goes higher, higher, still higher.

I'm alive,

I'm immortal,

I'm something else…