Daniel Mikhailovich

I found you on a blue evening

I found you

on a blue evening

when the earth had no idea

of its colour

the trees shook with discontent

they knew not which shade

with which they would wake.

I found dark roots in your hair

below a navy night

when the roots of the trees rattled

beneath the banks

and sent shoots from below the paving.

I found shoots in my chest

they crept from my nose

one night

I have never been as ill.

I found blonde buds

in my blood

they clotted in my throat

one night

I have never been as ill.

I found your scent

in my eye

when I washed my face

in the basin

and the rose water burned my corneas

I have seen you ever since

never have you seen me.

I found sickness

in a little dark-haired buzzard

with a shabby coat of feathers

grey, tattered ribbons in its eyes

it sank like a pebble

in a brook

from his perch.

I found nothing

in the promise of time

a slack, fraid rope

that could have fallen from the starry, starry skies

had they been starry

at all.