Зимородок

The Age of discovery

1. Indra’s net

Am I reflections of the world or the mirrors reflecting it?

    Anastasya Shepherd

One story of this world

Begins with “Let there be light”.

I do not think that punctuation

Had been invented

When these words were first recorded.

But judging from what follows,

An exclamation mark

Should cap that sentence.

But what about Indra’s net?

What are the words

That first emitted and still carry

The light that knits it into one great whole?

What punctuation should we use?

A question mark seems most fitting.

You and I, like everybody else,

Are both:

Jewels linked into a net

And reflections bouncing within a hall of mirrors.

But let us not get trapped.

We have the power to play it

Like a game, a dance,

A laugh-inducing tickle.

2. Voyagers

Я список кораблей прочёл до середины

    Осип Мадельштам

…The list Of soaring ships I’ve read up to the middle.

    Osip Mandelstam (translated by Alex Sitnitsky)

Wake up! Wake up!

There is a porthole, a port, a portal,

A momentary gap

Right here,

Where the past

Meets with the future.

A dawn breeze is rising.

You can glimpse the swaying masts,

The white sails being hoisted.

You can hear the seagulls laughing,

The lines groaning, singing,

Taut with force

Ready to propel the ship.

Let us arise and cross the threshold,

Let us run

To where the land and the water

Meet.

It is for us to name the vessel,

To unfurl the flag,

To set course

Across an uncharted sea.

3. Exploration

It's a strange world,

made of echoing emptiness

pulling itself together…

    Anastasya Shepherd

To blossom into being

A new world needs travelers.

Now we are here,

Calling out to each other:

“Look!”, “Did you hear that?”,

“This feels just like…”

“Watch out!”, “Where does this…”,

“Well done!” “What if?”

Now we are here,

Exploring with all our senses:

Humor, awe, dread, irony, appreciation, wonder.

When we gaze up

Celestial bodies

Flare into existence,

Dance with each other.

Flocks wing across the sky,

Swarms billow over bogs,

The air comes alive

With singing, buzzing, courting, hunting, pollinating.