Ilya Kutik

Fine-bearded Ilya Kutik & his wife, center, at home with his circle of friends, philologists, translators, poets & philosophy teachers, Moscow December 16, 1985. Dostoevsky-eyed youth in striped sweater had gone absent without leave for the evening from the Army to meet me and ask after Neal Cassady, Kerouac's hero On the Road., 1985

David and Orpheus

On his simple harp he sings praise to Him,
Who created us. His voice trembles from uncertainty
in himself, but not in Him, the Only, the Formidable – no escape.

Over his Apollonian lyre, having left behind the gloom
of Hades, he runs his fingers, not knowing amongst this scenery
which god to sing his song for in the present forest landscape:

of that oak? of that there pine? of that river? which to?
Again – the problems of Paris? He’ll play for any o’ youse
easily, even in the rain. But for which one ought he?

David, now, sits under a tree. From soul rupture
after the Anointing – life is like the branches
his ancestors have hung their harps on ever since captivity.

~

Harp, you are like the cheekbone
of cubism, you are like an icon-
precipice falling down,
and alongside – a saint and his mount.

Lyre, your sides
are incurved so like lips,
that Pan says to Apollo: “I
knew not of such a tulip.”