Рэй Дуглас Брэдбери – When Elephants Last in the Dooryard Bloomed (страница 3)

I lay upon the limb a long while, thinking.

I drank in all the leaves and clouds and weathers

Going by as mindless

As the days.

What, what, what if? I thought. But no. Some forty years beyond!

The note I’d put? It’s surely stolen off by now.

A boy or screech-owl’s pilfered, read, and tattered it.

It’s scattered to the lake like pollen, chestnut leaf

Or smoke of dandelion that breaks along the wind of time …

No. No.

I put my hand into the nest. I dug my fingers deep.

Nothing. And still more nothing. Yet digging further

I brought forth:

The note.

Like mothwings neatly powdered on themselves, and folded close

It had survived. No rains had touched, no sunlight bleached

Its stuff. It lay upon my palm. I knew its look:

Ruled paper from an old Sioux Indian Head scribble writing book.

What, what, oh, what had I put there in words

So many years ago?

I opened it. For now I had to know.

I opened it, and wept. I clung then to the tree

And let the tears flow out and down my chin.

Dear boy, strange child, who must have known the years

And reckoned time and smelled sweet death from flowers

In the far churchyard.

It was a message to the future, to myself.

Knowing one day I must arrive, come, seek, return.

From the young one to the old. From the me that was small

And fresh to the me that was large and no longer new.

What did it say that made me weep?

I remember you.

I remember you.

Pretend at Being Blind, Which Calls Truth Near

The backyard of my mind is filled this summer morning

With a soft and humming tide

The gentle glide and simmer, the frail tremoring

Of wings invisible which pause upon the air,

Subside, then come again at merest whisper

To the lip of flower, to the edge of wonder;

They do not tear asunder, their purpose simple

Is to waken me to wander without looking

Never thinking only feeling;

Thoughts can come long after breakfast.…

Now’s the time to press the air apart

And stand submerged by pollen siftings

And the driftings of those oiled and soundless wings

Which scribble waves of ink and water

Flourished eye-wink fluttering and scurry

Paradox of poise and hurry,

Standing still while spun-wound-bursting to depart,

Swift migrations of the heart of universe

Which surfs the wind and pulses awe;

Thirsting bird or artful thought the same,

Sight, not staring, wins the game,

Touch but do not trap things with the eyes,

Glance off, encouraging surprise;

Doing and being … these the true twins of eternal seeing.

Thinking comes later.

For now, balance at the equator of morn’s midnight

With wordless welcome, beckon in the days

But shout not, nor make motion,

Tremble not the sea nor ocean of being

Where thoughts in rounded flight fast-fleeing

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