Искусствоед
Lawrence Durrell
To Ping-Kû*, Asleep
You sleeping child asleep, away
Between the confusing world of forms,
The lamplight and the day; you lie
And the pause flows through you like glass,
Asleep in the body of the nautilus.
Between comparison and sleep,
Lips that move in quotation;
The turning of a small blind mind
Like a plant everywhere ascending.
Now out love has become a beanstalk.
Invent a language where the terms
Are smiles, someone in the house now
Only understands warmth and cherish,
Still twig-bound, learning to fly.
This hand exploring the world makes
The diver's deep-sea fingers on the sills
Of underwater windows; all the wrecks
Of our world where the sad blood leads back
Through memory and sense like divers working.
Sleep, my dear, we won't disturb
You, lying in the zones of sleep.
The four walls symbolise love put abut
To hold in silence which so soon brims
Over into sadness: it's still dark.
Sleep and rise a lady with a flower
Between your teeth and a cypress
Between your thighs:surely you won't ever
Be puzzled by a poem or disturbed by a poem
Made like fire by the rubbing of two sticks?
*Ping-Kû - daughter of Lawrence and Nancy - Penelope, lovingly called Ping-Kû
To Ping-Kû*, Asleep
You sleeping child asleep, away
Between the confusing world of forms,
The lamplight and the day; you lie
And the pause flows through you like glass,
Asleep in the body of the nautilus.
Between comparison and sleep,
Lips that move in quotation;
The turning of a small blind mind
Like a plant everywhere ascending.
Now out love has become a beanstalk.
Invent a language where the terms
Are smiles, someone in the house now
Only understands warmth and cherish,
Still twig-bound, learning to fly.
This hand exploring the world makes
The diver's deep-sea fingers on the sills
Of underwater windows; all the wrecks
Of our world where the sad blood leads back
Through memory and sense like divers working.
Sleep, my dear, we won't disturb
You, lying in the zones of sleep.
The four walls symbolise love put abut
To hold in silence which so soon brims
Over into sadness: it's still dark.
Sleep and rise a lady with a flower
Between your teeth and a cypress
Between your thighs:surely you won't ever
Be puzzled by a poem or disturbed by a poem
Made like fire by the rubbing of two sticks?
*Ping-Kû - daughter of Lawrence and Nancy - Penelope, lovingly called Ping-Kû