Why, Stranger, are you eying me?

The years have chipped on my youth’s tree.

I see the sadness in your eyes,

I’m not the one you’d recognize.

Had I known you, I would recall

The searing passion, lost love’s squall.

I don’t perceive within your gaze,

Reflection of my eyes’ bright blaze.

The lips I never did desire

Have failed to set my heat afire.

The body I did not embrace

In my heart holds no cherished place.

For you my heart has never bled

When far away you hast’ly fled.

When roses bloomed and trees awakened

My heart by sorrow wasn’t taken.

The wind was whistling in my ear

The name of someone else, my dear.

What, stranger, lost for words? Your silence is so loud.

Don’t look for any answers in my eyes:

They never sought you out amongst the crowds,

You haunted not my dreams beneath night skies.

And in the nights of Spring when happy starlets

Were twinkling in the skies above the Earth,

I never longed for your celestial marvels,

Your image I did not adorn with mirth.

Nor in the Fall, on bright and crispy mornings

When golden leaves were fading into dirt

I never wondered under yellow awnings

Awash with grief and plunged in world of hurt.

When Winter storms spread their deadly covers

Over the fields where roses lately bloomed

I never missed my non-existent lover,

To your embrace I never was attuned.

Why are you shedding tears, stranger?

Why touch me with your shaking hand?

Feels like you’re touching me with fire,

I never craved for you desire!

Whilome, when Spring’s exub’rant bloom

Was chasing out Winter’s doom,

The Sun was blazing in the sky

Oblivious to Winter’s cry,

Forgetting that young lovers’ hearts

Their Summer frenzy yet to start.

The wind, in love with lilacs’ scent,

My eyes in your direction sent.

You fancied me, why? I don’t know,

But you got settled in my heart,

Not in a hurry to depart.

I loved you. Why? I never knew.

But I knew well: without you

I wanted not to walk this earth

Without you what’s life is worth?

On summer day, on day of Thunder

A bolt of lightning my heart stunned:

Your short-lived love sailed out to yonder,

Like ocean mist in blazing sun.

All joys and worries have departed

Into the fog of olden days,

But just one trouble stays inserted

Into my heart and always stays.

Time and again, my mind brings out

The lovely features of your face.

Without mercy or a doubt

Upon my heart a bloody trace.

Long time ago, when summer glare

To earthly people brought delight,

I was committed to despair,

Forever dwelling in the night.

Into my heart you made your access,

But yours was shut by lock and chain.

You cast the key to ocean’s deepness

Not to be found by me again.

Delight and pain my heart acquired

Its agony was long and dire,

Burnt by the two contending fires

That you inspired.

Since then my heart is weeping every day

In mourning for your heart that turned away.

The rest of days I will endure

With heart that’s wounded by deceit.

You are my greatest pain, for sure,

The strongest love you’d ever cheat.

This said, the stranger turned around

And vanished in the morning mist,

As if she never walked the ground,

As if she never did exist.

By Liana Margiva

Translated from Russian by Anatol Kardiukov