I dreamed this dream and I still dream of it
I dreamed this dream and I still dream of it
and I will dream of it sometime again.
Everything repeats itself and everything will be reincarnated,
and my dreams will be your dreams.
There, to one side of us, to one side of the world
wave after wave breaks on the shore:
there's a star on the wave, and a man, and a bird,
reality and dreams and death - wave after wave.
Dates are irrelevant. I was, I am, I will be.
Life is a miracle of miracles, and I kneel
before the miracle alone like an orphan,
alone in the mirrors, enclosed in reflections,
seas and towns, shining brightly through the smoke.
A mother cries and takes her baby on her knee.
Arseny Tarkovsky
translated by Richard McKane
taken from 99 Poems in Translation: An anthology, eds, Harold Pinter, Anthony Astbury and Geoffrey Godbert, London, faber and faber, Greville Press, 1994.
