FAR AWAY LANDS

I'll sit down on a very white horse
During a yellow-green sunset in Fall . . .
Quietly touch on the new fallen snow,
Write to me in West, I'll be happier there.

Slowly I'll ride through the Ural mountains,
Gallop through the Volga,
Splash through the Don.
I'll gallop through Poland,
Gravely and sternly.
I'll turn to the South
Where they painted Madonnas.

Like a brave hidalgo in a mindless joy
I'll whistle on top of a windmill in La Mancha.

THE BEGINNING

Maria the Nurse

What did I say to Maria the nurse
when I was hugging her?
"You know that officer's daughters
don't look on us soldiers."

And the field of clovers was beneath us
quite like the river.
And the waves of the clovers became higher
and we swayed upon them.

And Maria, opening her arms,
swam down the river.
And black and eternal
were her light-blue eyes.

And when sunrise arrived
I told Maria
"No, imagine that officer's daughters

An underground movement called the Bard or Guitar-Poetry movement started in the late fifties and became big in Russia in the early sixties. The people that came out of this movement have changed the idea of Russian poetry, song, and style.