My Childhood Friend Changury Poem by Abraham Sutzkever

I

Are you still alive, my friend Changury,
Or a snowman amid frozen seas?
From the clouds your flickering face is luring
With two pupils borrowed from the trees.
Let us play again and find anew
All we never had in childhood past.
At the early breath of dawn, still blue,
Let us kiss each leaf and blade of grass.
Let us gulp mare's milk from goatskin bag,
Start a hunt of owls in light of day.
Let us, after long carousing, sag,
Fall asleep as then, slumped by the way.

II

Come, my brother, riding on your deaf
Humpy camel, quickly hoist me up
By my shirt and hold me like a staff —
Let us soar into the wind and gallop
To the quiet corners, there to meet
Birth of shadows ere the fall of night.
Grasses sparkle, charming at our feet.
Splendor doesn't know its own rich sight.
Spots of life dark in the tundra wide,
The Irtysh is clouded, on his own.
Camel steeped in blue. And we both ride
To the lustrous rocks of granite stone.

III

When the haughty mountains disappear
And a violet forest floats aloft,
A long evening-hand brings close and near
All that's separate, is merging soft.
The last flicker dances on a fir.
A last word is dancing on our lips.
In grass dream, our camel doesn't stir.
Only silence sails off on its ships.
In the sky a rake combs a wet cloud.
Opens up its secrets. Night comes mellow.
And we eat the moon (it is allowed!)
Like a sliced-up piece of watermelon.