Marge Piercy, 'Leonids Over Us'

[duathir.livejournal.com]

Leonids Over Us

The sky is streaked with them
burning holes in black space
like fireworks, someone says
all friendly in the dark chill
of Newcomb Hollow in November,
friends known only by voices.

We lie on the cold sand and it
embraces us, this beach
where locals never go in summer
and boast of their absence. Now
we lie eyes open to the flowers
of white ice that blaze over us

and seem to imprint directly
on our brains. I feel the earth,
rolling beneath as we face out
into the endlessness we usually
ignore. Past the evanescent
meteors, infinity pulls hard.

By Marge Piercy

Встречайте мужественно смерть / Meet death with fortitude, by Gennady Golovatyi

[med_cat]

From my archives--thought I'd share:

***
Встречайте мужественно смерть.
Она нисколько не печальней,
Чем жизнь, в котором умереть
Обречены мы изначально.
Встречайте мужественно смерть!

Meet death with fortitude.
It isn't any sadder
Than life, in which we are
Fated to die from the start of it.
Meet death with fortitude!
( Meet battles with fortitude... )

(Gennady Golovatyi, 1940--2001, was seriously ill and bedridden for many years)