In a Dream
by Anna Akhmatova
This black and endless
Separation:
I endure it too, everything —
Why are you crying? Come,
Give me your hand instead —
promise again
To come in dreams.
You and I
Are like grief and the mountain,
We will not meet
in this world.
But sometimes
will you send across the stars
A sign?
Translated by Lenore Mayhew and William McNaughton, from Poem Without a Hero and Selected Poems (Oberlin College Press, 1989)
So glad you used this translation. Lenore’s daughter was my best friend when I was a kid. I knew her and Bill well. She gave me a book on haiku and encouraged my poetry.
This short poem says so much. Beautiful!