Aspiring

Aspiring to get to root
Of all the matters
In work, in search of road,
In discords of the heart.

The essence of the days that passed
The reasons of the causes,
To grounds and to stems,
To their deepest cores.

Gripping the thread of destinies,
Events, developments,
To live, to think, to sense, to love,
And to reveal.

If only I was capable
At least in part
Of writing just eight lines
Devoted to passion,

Of lawlessness, of sins,
Of chase and hiding,
Of accidental hasty touch
Of hands and arms.

I would disclose secret of its nature,
Where it begins.
I would repeat initial letters
Of all its names.

I would lay poems just like gardens
With veins trembling
My lime trees would blossom standing
In single file.

I would enclose in my poems
The breath of roses, of mint and meadows
Of sedge and hayfield,
And rolls of thunder.

Just like Chopin enclosed live magic
Of farms and parks and grooves and graves
In his etudes.

The pain and rejoice
Of the achieved triumph  –
A strained string
Of the drawn bow.

(By Boris Pasternak
Translation by Svetlana Rakhimova )