LETTER TO LERMONTOV

You are distant, alone, and far on the horizon,

obscured, almost nurtured, by the ocean's fog.

Seeking and searching, you are always a stranger:

What did leaving me, losing me, cost?

I would swim with one foot on the sand of the dry land;

I would wait for you, never explore.

But you are the waves, and the wind and its whistle,

and the storm you embrace far from shore.

My few timid ships all cling to the shoreline

too frightened to leave what they know.

You laugh and command them: There is another shore;

the second appears when the first is gone.

So sing, my dear love, of the wide morning's gold sky,

and the call of the azure strand,

and the gull and the salt and the mast that pitches,

and the lure of a foreign land.

I will be your welcome, your country forever;

I'll receive, then release you (adieu).

I will be your native and nurturing homeland

and wait to be called home by you.