As promised, here is a translated version of Russian poet’s Anatoly Steiger’s untitled poem I posted earlier in Russian. The translation is literally-minded, not poetical, but this style oddly fits the poem itself. There is fairly little in English on the web about Steiger. A short essay, but that’s pretty much it.
What follows is a translation by Meropi Papagheorghe, a Romanian friend and translator.
Here, surely, it is not the bed that matters
And as a guarantee, I never dream about your body,
Your body’s not the only goal
One cannot speak of this – but suffer it.I wouldn’t take your hand now
Stubbornly, I wouldn’t seek your touch
Your hair, your shoulders and your cheeks –
As if all these, by chance, were not invaluable to me.I’ve long turned sadder and more modest…
For me, it is enough to know that you are living in this world
And tenderness and all that lies within it, underneath
Has grown accustomed to expect nothing – over the years…How little does it take to love
The more you give, the more deeply and strongly
I pray, day and night, for one thing alone – that you live
Where and for whom, you already know better.
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