Amicale

Odessa vers libre

 

Everyone calls my hometown "Mom". "Odessa-Mama".

Mom loves people. Mom is wise and beautiful.

She has a Greek square and the Moldоvanka district,

And also Bulgarian, Jewish, Italian streets.

Empire and baroque. And beloved, almost Viennese, Opera.

Her Pushkin and Richelieu "live" on the same boulevard.

With such a Mom

It is easy to be cosmopolitan.

 

But in the Soviet school there were other rules:

"Borders are everywhere. Being yourself is bad."

Mom laughed, shook her head: "There are no borders."

I came to her: learned to be true to myself,

I breathed her acacias, her sea, her sunsets,

I was looking for beautiful shells, beautiful books and meanings.

I only trusted my Mom.

I was sixteen.

 

I stood behind the lectern, at the university.

I taught to think, to write, to speak,

I tried to be precise and humble.

Students asked: "Where to look for borders?"

I told them: "Look for yourself. There are no borders.

There are no borders for those who is smart and full of love."

And I trusted myself.

I was thirty-two.

 

But one day I cried when I saw my Mom

Bristled with anti-tank hedgehogs.

I prayed that there would be borders.

The borders of the monstrous madness of a neighboring country.

But Mom shook her head: "There are no borders, I told you."

And stroked my hand: "Don't cry, I can handle it."

I was forty-six.

And again I trusted only Mom.

                                                                                 

Ellen Vitanova

Original language : Russian