Once more we’re living by the bay

A poem by Joseph Brodsky

I dug up a translation of Joseph Brodsky’s Sonnet in my old letters. I liked this translation (it is from a book I had once) and I tweaked it a little to reflect the original better. Brodsky wrote this when he was 22, before he hada chance to visit Italy. Apart from obvious reference, the poem clearly refers to the Guld of Finland. It is a beautiful and serene place, Russian North at its best.

Once more we’re living by the bay

and clouds drift, daily, above us.

Our modern Vesuvius has cleared it’s throat;

volcanic ash is settling in the side-streets.

Our windowpanes have rattled to it’s roaring.

Some day we too will be shrouded with ashes.

And when that happens, at that dreary moment,

I’d like to take a streetcart to the outskirts

of our town and come inside your house;

and if, hundreds of years later

a team will come to dig our city out

I hope they find me, cloaked with modern ash

everlastingly within your arms.