Flock, by Nina Kossman: in Russian and English

A Black Flock of Quietly Falling Birds, by Nina Kossman (USA) contemporary

СТАЯ
(Russian)

Видишь, как чёрная стая
молча упавших птиц
смотрит, воздух глотая, 
на воздух, глядящий вниз;
и разум их, ставший крыльями
и их изумленные сны
о небе, коварно спиленном
до самой голубизны--
черною стаей, без крика,
в безмолвные лезвия трав:
железной земли сто-окой
и зрячего неба сплав.

A Flock

See how a black flock
of silently fallen birds
stares, swallowing air,
at the air, staring down;
and their mind, become wings
and their astonished dreams
of the sky, insidiously sawed 
down to its very bluest -
the black flock, without a sound -
into the soundless blades of grass:
an alloy of the hundred-eyed earth
and the seeing sky.

Nina Kossman

Moscow born,  Nina Kossman is an artist, bilingual writer, poet, translator of Russian poetry, painter, and playwright. Her paintings and sculptures have been exhibited in Moscow, Philadelphia, and New York. Her English short stories and poems have been published in US, Canadian and British journals. Her Russian poems and short stories have been published in major Russian literary journals. Among her published works are two books of poems in Russian and English, two volumes of translations of Marina Tsvetaeva’s poems, two collections of short stories, an anthology (Gods and Mortals: Modern Poems on Classical Myths) published by Oxford University Press, and a novel. Her new book of English poems, Other Shepherds, is forthcoming from Poets & Traitors Press. Her work has been translated into Greek, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish. She received a UNESCO/PEN Short Story Award, an NEA translation fellowship, and grants from Foundation for Hellenic Culture, the Onassis Public Benefit Foundation, and Fundacion Valparaiso. She lives in New York. ​