.. detours ..

Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another’s skin, another’s voice, another’s soul.

But today I want Rilke to speak—through me. In the vernacular, this is known as translation. (Germans put it so much better—nachdichten—to pave over the road, over instantaneously vanishing traces.) But translation has another meaning. To translate not just into (i.e., into the Russian language), but across (a river). I translate Rilke into Russian, as he will someday translate me to the other world. By hand—across the river.

I longed with all my heart for a fresh green silence between living water and forests.

I am drowning, my dear, in seas of fire.