Just as children scrawl self-portraits
With two figures – Mom and Dad –
Grasping them by their unsteady stick-hands,
I’m drawing on the window-pane
A Kingdom of Fallen Statues –
And the outlines, delicate and fine, are wavering.
In the Kingdom of Fallen Statues all gates stand open;
Even marauders no longer walk
On the grass that seems to have shot to full height in a flash.
Non-existent temples,
And yes, non-existent dramas –
But how real, O god, how very much alive they are . . .
Gilding and lapis
Flake like skin
From the leprous faces of princes and saints,
And, seated on tombstones
Or perhaps on column stumps,
Black-hooded gravediggers roll cigarettes in yellowed verse.
Don Quixote’s shield lies somewhere,
Somewhere Casanova’s cloak was tossed,
Somewhere stands the tent in which Khmelnytsky hosted Europe’s ambassadors.
In the Kingdom of Fallen Statues you can hear a language
Of words still warm but no longer learned.
I’m drawing it all: everything that ever vanished, or will;
I peer into my picture as into ripples on water:
Triumphant Nike’s head
Is lying somewhere in the grass.
I’ll draw it – and then
I’ll put the period.