B.Akhmadulina, I'M Greedy Of A Woman's Habit... - Translation (Rus.) Poem by Lyudmila Purgina

by Bella Akhmadulina

I'm greedy of a woman's habit -
to be a woman and a married one,
but, I think, heavens failed to look me after,
and thus I was unlucky in affair.

Keep me, the inexorable squint manner,
in safety out of all well-to-be,
but go aside, please, by your care scalding
of two girls, dirty with the raspberries.

They still are laughing, searching for a berry,
but suddenly - they look with grief as me.
As all, I wished - and nursed, breast-feeded,
thought - it was honey, but it was a venom.

That mark of our union in their faces
is irreparable and fabulous.
When crow's fated to be born as white one,
let God be graceful in the issues' absence.

To be white - absurd, to be black - not new thing,
to blacken - not for long, to whiten - boundless.
More and more I'm unsinful before others,
More and more I'm guilty before children.

1974