The Emergence of Russian Subjectivity:
A Critical Introduction to the New Poems of Alexei
Makushinsky, part 3
Although the state of impermanence both in the sense
of the lyrical “self” and the present are a strong
trope in the manuscript, it must be said that the poems
themselves beautifully identify the smaller scales
that make life worth living, and even death worth dying. The
tiny moments of pleasure are undeniably there as the
viewer weighs history with future. For example,
in the poem “I still haven’t lived until that age,”
the speaker unveils an emptiness of the city and likens
this weight with Saint Christopher’s burden while discussing
his identification with his father. However,
while the poem begins to wrap up with “And just so
shadows / Lay on those paths, like in this park,” the
speaker magnanimously, and positively, ends with the
tidbit: “Where we drink coffee, prior to driving back.” The
positive aspect can be viewed in the present tense
of “drink,” and the idea of taking time to do such
a small, but often pleasurable activity, before departing
this city of “Sunday emptiness.”
A hopeful gleam can be parsed from the poem “St. Luca
Draws the Madonna” as well, where the speaker imagines
the other moment of inception, that of a magnificent
work of art. Along with the uncertainty of this
moment: “Not because I know how. I don’t know,”
comes the implication that art is a natural phenomenon
that falls only slightly short of a miracle: “His quiet
hand with pencil over paper, / Already he has tiredness
under his eyes. / These lines lead me even further.
She is silent / Always and even now. Trains go,
planes / And angels fly the sky. This is why.” The
speaker also seems relieved to be living in a time
and place that demands little of what dire historical
events might have demanded of him otherwise; “A Different
Beginning,” begins: “What happiness to die in Paris
/ in the hospital, in poverty, in suffering…death /
is death. But even so: what, / must be happiness
it is to die in Paris, / in the hospital, not in a
barrack, on a mattress, / not in a boxcar.”
Ironically, and almost certainly, just as the manuscript
begins with the consideration of death, it ends with
the title poem “The Light behind the Trees,” a long
poem whose repetition resembles the circular, and so
obsessive, elements of a sestina. It ruminates
on the process of dying in comfort, such as what objects
and memories might seep in and even potentially harangue
the speaker in their consistent cycling throughout
all other thoughts. The poem is bittersweet,
in the sweetest sense of the word; instead of an overall
sadness with the inevitable departing, there lies the
conviction that “there was happiness, it really was
had, there was so much / happiness, like sugar in tea,
come on now, / so much sugar, as if it’s possible to
have so much,” and even though “everything quiets,
all is silent, like soap, stills, winds, not important,
but visible / from afar still, farther and farther,
/ the city, to which your entire life you so wanted
to visit,” there is still, now and forever, the
delightful and yet threatening illusions in the ending
lines of the poem: “and the light, the light, and of
course the light behind the trees.” The light
is both illuminating and a threat in that it is the
last thing that we see before death, and it also eclipses
our knowledge of the elements around us (blinding light). We
return to, just as we were born into, the conception
of light as both the illusionist and the mystic, the
unreal veiling in Schopenhauer’s dreams, the last “reality”
we see when we close our eyes at the dawning of night.
Works Cited
Keller, Katherine. “The Guest.”Trans. Julia
Istomina. New Coast No.13 (2006).
13 January 2006. <http://magazines.russ.ru/authors/k/keller/>.
Makushinsky, Alexei. The Light behind the
Trees. St. Petersburg: Aleteria, 2007.
PEN American Center. “PEN World Voices: The New York
Festival of International
Literature April 24-29, 2007.” 20 April 2007. http://pen.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/1305/prmID/1411.
Schmidt, Paul. The Stray Dog Cabaret: A Book
of Russian Poems. New York: New
York Review Books, 2007.
Index of Selected Translations
A Different Beginning
“What happiness to die in Paris,
in the hospital, in poverty, in suffering…death
is death. But even so: what
must be happiness it is to die in Paris,
in the hospital, not in a barrack, on a mattress,
not on shards of plywood.” I’m looking at these
huge
clouds, swimming above the world,
these squares, scattered by cobblestones,
these statues on the bridge. I live here.
Here, in Europe, in an epilogue to the past.
Their shadows still walk through the blue morning,
the rumble of their walks lingers under these arches,
the road metal still whispers about them in these parks,
the flowing of rivers continues their lines.
And angels fly away through wires,
the cream of Biscay waves beats into the waffle shore,
oaks and ashes noise of emigrants and the driven-off.
I owe all to them; I wouldn’t exist, if not for them.
Nobody chased me, I myself chose this
movement in time, nearing to the nonexistent.
Because everything, never ending, ended.
And you see clearly, looking at the clouds and the
squares,
how all the synods of Europe, all the town halls,
all the columns join, very slowly, to the harbor,
preparing for the drift-off, beginning another history.
20 October 2003
“Cities, through which
we drove that summer”
Cities, through which we drove that summer,
Circled by you on a map,
Dieppe, Honfluer, Calais, his burghers,
Walking across the square.
And resembling the square — harbors,
Harbors, rocking of boats,
Fruits of the sea, laid out in the window,
Masts leaning one to another.
“Nothing, in general, exists, only this
rocking, these patches of light —
toutes ces choses pensent par moi, ou je pense par
elles ,
the largess of air, clouds”.
And somewhere, on some outskirt,
Sun, dust, corpse smell,
Endless, low, red
Wall of a slaughterhouse.
July 2003
“I still haven’t
reached”
I still haven’t reached
the age my father was
when I was born. Right here we’ll turn left,
drive on the motorway.
Everything begins anew, every day,
begins anew. We’ve driven
far. The city, burnt by the sun.
Clock on tower. Sunday emptiness.
How this all wants to be spoken, these streets,
barely breathing from heat, this square
with her written-out facades (on one of
which — Saint Christopher,
carrying his weight on his shoulders), the river
with her mad spots of light…My father
also began very late. His life also
split into two parts.
Beginning the second part, you recall
the beginning of the first. And just so shadows
lay on those paths, like in this park,
where we drink coffee, prior to driving back.
St. Luca Draws the Madonna
Not because I know how. I don’t know.
Not because I believe that I could. I don’t believe.
But because there’s nothing yet to have, not Her,
not the child, not even this room with a canopy, with
columns,
and exiting into the balcony, no balcony, no them,
who
stand there, no river, no hills, no towers, no me
myself. All this wants to exist, I want to exist. She
is looking to the side, with a lunar smile.
Not because I know. I don’t know. Not
because
I believe. I don’t believe. But because
everything begins
again — everything originates, these hills and columns. I
myself
appear. All this moves. Stars walk
somewhere above us, and underground
waters flow in dark. All this wants to exist.
And that is why we begin again, each
time. She is looking to the side, smiling.
Everything moves, only She is immovable.
Not because
it’s me. Doesn’t matter who. I
see
this branching of the river, these folds of clothes,
their fall
and weight, squares of the floor and rhombuses
in them,
his quiet hand with pencil over paper,
already he has
tiredness under his eyes.
These lines lead me even further. She
is silent
always and even now. Trains go, planes
and angels
fly the sky. This is why.
“Walking away, he looks
at the already foreign objects”
Walking away, he looks at the already foreign objects,
the door in glass squares, the portiere hung on copper
rings,
the narrow mirror. He is the hero of his own
novel
(film?), with a bag over a shoulder walking to the
station.
The future sounds in him, eclipsing other sounds,
and accidental thoughts form a pattern, sensible and
miraculous.
Everything comes together, right now everything will
come together:
the smoky road in the window, the tea in the saucer,
somebody’s past glance, and that old man, sitting
across.
He doesn’t yet have the word ‘age’ in his lexicon. Still,
shadows are already lying behind him otherwise. A
future is
already beginning in him — like the city, slyly becoming
at dawn.
Two Variations On the Themes
of Philip Larkin [2nd
Variation]
1914–2004
Never such innocence again.
Philip Larkin: MCMXIV
Checking the dates, you think in ten
years already a hundred, and to the black
large four
introduce once again a strict ‘1’;
you think, how could this happen; you see fields and
faces,
untouched by the trenches, the continuation
of discontinued lives; you think if … if
this and this would have happened — as if the
shadows
of hero chances walk by, confused, in front
of you, parting hands — everything could have turned
otherwise … You see hats, flying up in giddiness,
dark
crowds, believing, that they believe
in something, what already isn’t, that they were
In sun-washed streets,
yelling “With victory return!” showering happy
soldiers with flowers, out of whom no one survived;
and gray ranks of parades, the last epaulettes,
aiguillettes, plumes; abetting from history
forever, under the clatter of nettled reel,
monarchs; the seeding scroll; sisters of Tenderheart
in white
kerchiefs with crosses, with faces from another
epoch. You think, what’s all this to me? In
reality you yourself don’t
know. To the bayonet of the ‘1’ you measure a
‘7’, and
walk out into the street, where what was able to remain
from the past has stayed. So little.
The Fountain
Large-headed children, frozen at the water.
On the courtyard, always an empty, gigantic
and half-circular (cobblestone, caryatids).
They play (or make the appearance of playing)
with a frog, a little stone, a little fish.
There’s six of them. They’re made of stone.
Only one of them, snatched by cancer,
looks at the sky, and to the sky
rendering a swollen hand.
The rest look you straight in the face.
You circle them along the hour or across
the hour hand. Circle one more time.
They look at you distrustfully;
under their sharply bulging foreheads, spots of moss.
They look without tearing away. They don’t see.
The water behind them, falling, sputters. Sunspots
run through over you and over them.
They sit unmoving.
I used catch sunspots in the pond, caught tadpoles,
caught frogs (for what?). Smell of smoke
mixed with the smell of dusk,
lawn and mire. Nothing changes. The seventh
sits inside of me, just as
immobile, as these six.
“Let’s talk about bicycles. That first one”
Let’s talk
about bicycles. That first one,
with the fat orange tires,
on which you suddenly took off, not believing,
that you’re riding, able to look back, seeing
them all, already tiring, throwing
their hands, riding away even farther through the clear
evening, along the sky, sparkling on the wet
asphalt, finding the balance — or
suddenly being found by it. The same thing, perhaps,
which you find, that finds you,
when lines (like these) stand up,
holding on and moving simultaneously.
22 June 2004
“And always the wish to
drive off to the very borderless border”
And always the wish to drive off to the very borderless
border of
universal light, to Ireland, to the devil, to the sea,
to see the runaway swamps of stone Konnemari,
the ginger mountain tops under a thousand-headed sky.
This place with a stranger’s fate, disconnected from
her, with whom
you arrive here, to the one sitting next to you
in the car that you rented in Golva, all in all he,
who
in the beginning of his life believed so much in fate,
in the movement
of thought in time, in that time has stayed.
From himself is left, maybe, only the wish
to
drive off
to the very borderless border, where there is plenty
of light, to see
these walls made from smooth stones, this sea, shining
behind them.
7 July 2004
“Always very straight — even if”
Always very straight — even if
bent by the wind — stand
the trees. As straight, as we
want to be, when we very rarely
stand in front of them, in front
of that, which is behind them, around them,
around us. You know, there's nothing here
without you, in general, new. Fall
is already ending, already only the white
little balls on black branches, but no snow
yet. Everything is open
wide. And just as
straight, even if bent by the wind,
stand the trees. As straight, as I couldn't
stand, in front of this
enormous, without you, emptiness.
9 December 2003
Train into Frankfurt
Everything is saddening, said the Prince of Ganja,
even
these transparent pages, this white, rose
scattering of branches. Because spring tells
me
about fall, about the flow of time, because
flowers will fall apart and leaves will wilt. Even
the monk thought
about that which lies behind words, which
he might have spoken in reassurance, and which
he later did not speak in reassurance. That behind
all words and thoughts, the leaves and branches
lie or, perhaps, he thought, move,
like us, closing in, slipping, swimming through
the ripped-open light of a landscape, where the chains
of trees scatter across slopes, a buoyant
cloud takes off above the bell tower, and mountain
peaks disappear in a glittering fog. Cars
didn’t hurry behind the train, in the window across
the corridor, where they carried out suitcases
on little wheels, they carried out bags. There was
a city, large turrets on a sunlight horizon.
The Light behind the Trees
The
Bed, the books, the chair, the moving nuns …
—Wallace
Stevens
But every day was some day and every
night some night, sleepless, moonless.
Chairs entirely won't sit, but walk up, walk away;
bent faces step out of dusk, and phials
gleam on the little table, gathering remains of light,
which transfers into that same dusk, - but every
day was, of course, some day, happy, unneeded
or wintry, and no one will ever remember them,
won't count them, and it isn't worth it to try, but
still
they were, all of them, with their dusks, their wet
branches,
their leaves in puddles, their warmth in mittens,
their currents, their ticking into evening, the expectance
of something, a phone call, with the phone
at the mirror, and the mirror in the bathroom, not
in this one,
not in a different one, not in any one can anything
be seen anymore,
It’s unimportant that already unable to be seen,
faraway and continuously farther, in the depth of streets,
someone who still walks and walks away, always walks
away,
still further from this room, banks, these phials on
the little table,
these sounds behind the wall in the corridor, steps,
walking away
down the corridor still farther, along streets and
their clouds
and roofs, with their wet roofs, their circling
birds over wet roofs, with doves and the jackdaw
in the park, the splitting of little roads, pathways,
and all this
was, and the sounds extinguish, and the pain stays,
and were,
of course, stations, stations, their names, already
nobody will
remember them, nameless stations, which can't
even be reached, and how I long to, can't
reach by snow, can't drive to by train, trains,
of course, even so, existed, commercial, dark, the
writings
of chalk on the walls, already unreadable, the seats
won't ever seat, everyone leaves, still farther,
and military trains, echelons, and red, hot
arrows, how painful, and words drive off on the walls,
the words unheard, already can't parse them, but every
word
existed, had been said by someone and meant something,
and every morning was kind, unkind,
rainy, and the dog had a bandaged
paw, and a Siamese cat, nails, scratches, its’ kingly
present, and the eternal expectation of anything,
a phone call, the phone was in the walkway
by the mirror, and the mirror was in the bathroom,
more frightening
when you don't wait for anything, when there's nothing,
all
so quiet, so undetected walk up, like cats,
these sisters, these brothers and sisters, little sisters,
don't get mad, the trains were there, the military
ones,
there were worldly echelons, a commercial train, nowhere,
from nowhere,
all is silent, everything stills, everything without
a prayer, like chalk,
like the writing of chalk, like chalk on the bottom
of a tea pot,
the tea was bitter, was sweet, there was sugar,
there was happiness, it really was had, there was so
much
happiness, like sugar in tea, come on now,
so much sugar, as if its possible to have so much,
no so,
everything always was, in principle, not like this,
there were phials,
there were bottles, little glass things, glasses, and
the words couldn't
be parsed, everything quiets like
chalk, all is silent,
like soap, stills, winds, not important, but visible
from afar still, farther and farther,
the city, which your entire life you so wanted
to visit, it raises its turrets above the figurines,
its dark-blue sky over the figurines, its turrets
on the dark-blue sky, here they are, even so,
and branches on the sky, and of course the light behind
the trees,
this light behind the trees, in the evening, in dusk,
along the road somewhere, he was, there were stations,
there were names of stations, there were rusted letters
and a crowded pavement on the platform, there was wind,
a scar, an I love you, me too, there was a kingly,
allow scratches, but a kingly present, so piteous,
that there's no one to present it to, already no one
to forgive, everyone
left, they all leave, still farther, still clearer
from this
barrack, rooms, and you'll outwait the call, just to
get the call,
the phone call, trivial which one, all quiet,
still quieter, everything becomes minute on the edge
of sight, in the distance of these faces, but every,
of course,
day was still some day, every one was endless,
and all this extends, extends, never ends,
and roofs over figurines, and military echelons, to
love
so simply, the leaves in puddles, and stations, and
words,
and the light, the light, of course and the light behind
the trees
The Guest
by Katherine Keller
He comes in from the rain, lingers in the rain,
Takes off his slicker, hangs the slicker in the hallway,
Comes into the light. Waits, for the light to
disappear —
Abrupt, cutting, like the first recognition,
Like love’s ignition. Agrees to a drink, while
In the kitchen dinner will be cooking. Afterwards
He’ll be sitting, fixed into the darkness —
The hosts sleep. He listens and doesn’t hear,
How clouds swim into his cherished port,
How rain gathers its strengths in the tops of the forest,
How someone hides dreams under a warm pillow —
Someone, whom he long and problematically remembered.
Come morning everything is in sun. In a stranger’s
tongue
He’ll turn to the hosts, will jabber about the weather,
Pointing to the distance, into the window, to the pine
forest,
With a happy snort winking at the hostess’s son.
To him he’ll turn in his own tongue,
Securely freeing words and understanding
From translation.
They walk out into the neighborhood,
Into the fresh sun. And, it seems, the world
hears them —
Today, always, — and it seems, there are no boundaries
Of the blue sky, — abundant blue spots
Through the crowns of trees. He keeps his gaze
On the pines,
He peers into height, its recklessness —
Today he truly feels the power of words.
“Lucas, throw the ball!”
And Lucas throws the ball.
© 2007
Salt Publishing Limited 
