ČAKS, Aleksanders
In Twilight
The silence of snow oars on the streets,
And somewhere in sheds oars grieve.
You sit and speak so quietly,
As though wary of yourself and others.
Shall I exchange my black curtain
For another one — bright and red?
You're the sort to take affront —
Your own heart would hang you.
Weightless light steals from the glass,
Behind the wallpaper is a smell of lime.
How I'd like to smooth against my face
A newly cut round of pine.
Then again in this time of winter
I'd feel moist marl and streams,
And bending I'd say to you — gentle one,
I like the pattern of your dress.
But you, you talk of eternity
And fear your own death:
Long ago I told you — don't wear brown,
It's harmful to your nerves.
Who can touch on thoughts of death:
She never comes before her time,
Better learn to water flowers
And chase the tears from your cheek.
A Soldier’s Song to a Latvian Girl
If you are sad, my friend,
don't go –
don’t go uphill to that round café:
the women there
wear expensive lip colors,
Eastern perfumes,
and the aroma of their lovers’ cigars;
the dark-haired violinist is too handsome,
and over one cup of coffee
youths linger for hours,
surreptitiously watching the lonely young girls.
…Don’t go.
If you are sad, my friend,
come with me.
Elegy at the Window
Tonight
the moon
as though marinated.
A family
on the fourth floor
playing the gramophone.
From the street
floods twilight
and coolness.
I feel
like a seaman in Bergen harbor
who looks through binoculars
seeing ice.
But . . . nevertheless I dream
that I am in Paris,
where one can kiss on the streets.
You are a midinette,
I — a mediocre poet;
we sit in a smoky room
and drink the cheapest
French wine.
You smile
about my fanciful life.
It's that time
when the last Sunday goers
return home from the seaside.
Lamps
flicker on in the squares
above the lindens.
But we
haven't even a linden,
only the old myrtle
and needle memories
in the vase on the table.
And I am as sorrowful
as a village girl
who has lost — her favorite cat..