Текст песни Behind the Gasworks On Railroad Avenue/ An Odd Gift (Rodney DeCroo) с переводом

Where white storage tanks sit in gravel and tar,

my brother and I push our bicycles

into a vacant lot of dust and far apart trees

that throw skinny shade against a white

one storey brick and concrete building

that was once a factory. We lay

our bicycles on the ground and sit

with our backs against the coolness

of the brick wall. Our legs thrust out

before us in the dust. It doesn’t matter

that we are wearing cut off jeans and our legs

will be stained with the dust and our sweat.

We are too young to separate ourselves

from the day with its load of sunlight

and dirt. We are tired and do not talk,

we turn the dirt through our fingers

and my brother says look and holds

his hand out to me. Two pieces of pig iron

in his dirt smeared palm. They’re

as black as crow feathers I say. He puts

them in his pocket. Says quietly,

crow feathers, boy that’s a

good one. We sit a while longer.

I notice our breath rising and falling

and how effortless it seems. This

is the summer day that comes back to me

when my brother I haven’t heard from

in a year or two calls tonight

to say he is living in Jacksonville

in a treatment center and no liquor

has passed his lips for three weeks.

His ex-wife, who won’t speak his name,

will let him see his son if he stays sober

for a year. He still has the two pieces

of pig iron wrapped in cloth in a drawer.

He says they help him to stay sober

and do I remember that day and how

I said crow feathers. I see the white storage

tanks, barbed wire, gravel, and tar.

Yes, I say, and set the phone softly down

(music bridge/ transition into second poem on track)

An Odd Gift

The tulips you gave me have wilted.

They sag like the bent necks

of horses drinking at the river’s

edge beneath a hard sun. The vase

you placed them in is brighter

now than the shriveled petals

that only days ago were the color

of fire not rust. When I was five

my father put me on a horse.

It was like being astride a planet.

A sharp kick and the entire earth

moved beneath me. My father

yards ahead, blue work shirt

patched a darker blue by sweat,

rode without turning once.

The huge slabbed muscles

of the neck, the rolling might

of that wide warm back

carried me as safe and light

as air along the path

into the forest shadows.

The river shone in pieces

between the pines like flickering

coins tossed in the dark.

I scarcely held the leather reins.

The horses knew the way to water

and brought us there with easy gait

and snorted breath to fill their thirst.

In this evening’s half-light

your dead tulips seem to glow,

like dark eyes of horses

as they bow their heads to drink.

Перевод песни Behind the Gasworks On Railroad Avenue/ An Odd Gift