Chekhov in Crimea

Author: Hendrik Jackson
Translator: Catherine Hales

he is leaning over his desk
into the light, which falls
in patches. outside tipped aslant
grey-black of tree-trunks, the broken-off
voice of the dispatch. steps of a crane
creaking floorboards, then the sea’s
constant rush of sound, silence of the stone

cries, cries, swirling
now from the veranda.
Marcus Aurelius: that a short life
should coincide with a long one
– formations of decay
trenches in the earth and bars of shadow
swallowed in blackness

Original Hendrik Jackson
from
Dunkelströme © 2006 kookbooks, Idstein.
Translation © Catherine Hales