On Jazz in Soviet Times – inspired by the novel „On the Sunny Side of the Street“ by Dina Rubina
She asked me: "What sound is that, similar to breathing
above the fragrant grass, between the cherry trees in full bloom?
Oh, one could cry, and dance, and smile,
dissolve oneself in this song, turn into absoulte silence.
What is so unknown to me and yet I am missing it,
what is enticing me with gentle hands of sound?
What wonderful feeling is overwhelming me,
the name of which is impossible to pronounce with words?"
That's what she asked me on our way through the park,
on a warm April night, in the fragrance of sweet cherry trees,
dancing and running, a glittering will-o-wisp in the dark,
soaring on the tide of a fragile invisible breeze.
But I have no answer. I've been speechless too long,
and I don't trust in words any more than I trust in this night.
Just remember the rhythm, remember the tune of the song,
they're beauty, and beauty's the one thing that can't be denied.
This sound is a stranger, it travels the air,
like the night, like the spring, like we do.
Let it pass through your ears,
let it pass through your heart,
and maybe it will leave a trace there
on its way through.
She turned and she came back and put her small hand into mine,
just a few steps before we'd have reached the source of the song,
and she said: "You don't want to, or rather, you are not able to,
this garden is a place where we're strangers and do not belong."
In the warmth of her hand was a strength no vodka could give,
and her faith and her youth eased the pain in my soul and my body,
I opened my mouth, and said: "Not more foreign than spring,
not farther away than trust, not more deceptive than freedom."
This sound is a stranger, traveling the air,
like the night, like the spring, like you are.
Let it pass through your ears,
let it pass through your heart,
and maybe it will lead you out there
into nowhere.
Crystal, April 2009