A POTION OF SIGHS

By Yasen Vedrin

(A Potion of Sighs)

Upon the warm stove of my lifetime and fate,

A kettle of bitter herbs simmers and sighs.

I gathered the weeds when the starlight was late,

And mixed them with faith and with wisdom likewise.

At first, I left footprints. I pressed with my heel.

In these little hollows I wept, all alone.

A tear in each space — for pure dreams I could feel,

And grief for the colorless life I had known.

From within my own heart, seeds for herbs I then chose.

Each seed filled with yearning, anxiety, care.

Deep down in the soil, the seeds I enclosed,

And offered to God a hot, passionate prayer.

Time passed. Many summers extinguished their light.

My hair started changing its shades and its gleams.

Like a sad, ancient fated queen, youth took its flight.

It wept right beside me. It packed up my dreams.

And then I rushed up the steep slope in a race

To find all the footprints I left long ago.

Those herbs that were planted with moans in that place.

Those sighs that were bitter, with sadness and woe.

They had sprouted and grown. They had bloomed in the air.

Not a single wild herb, but a garden, whole-grown.

There is tea for the soul of the poet so rare,

Who passed through this life quite ingloriously, alone.

So I sit here in silence. I stretch out my hands

And warm myself up with live memories’ trace.

I drink from the potion. On my palate expands

The glow of sad sighs, bitter-tasting with grace.

FAREWELL

By Yasen Vedrin

(A Potion of Sighs)

Stripped of my leaves, in dark forebodings grieving,

From truths and worries that came true, so tired.

A late, cold autumn with its gusts is weaving

A final shrift for me, by winds inspired.

“I’m leaving now. The winter comes behind me.

I shook your branches in my freezing rain.

But life will go on long, as time outlined thee,

So hold your faith deep down through all the pain.

The leaves grow green, then wither and decay.

So fragile — like words caught in cycles’ spin.

And feelings slow down, panting on the way,

Within this seasonal world you wander in.

I’m leaving now. Let me embrace you tight,

For frost will cover you with white tomorrow.

But I will return, out of the winter's night,

And all between us shall resume past sorrow...”

My very final leaf was torn away.

It tried to fly, but failed and met the ground.

And I, who sent my autumn on its way,

Curled by the root to sleep in peace profound.

AUTUMN WISDOM

By Yasen Vedrin

(A Potion of Sighs)

My final autumn strikes me with its breeze

And shakes the yellow leaves into the air.

With secret leaven, kneaded with much ease

Inside my heart, to follow truth I dare.

It always wakes exactly at the stage

When loops and cycles near their final end,

And when the artist needs, at such an age,

To feel rich in the heights, as realms ascend.

Attempting at the sunset to stay warm,

Old men step forth into the gloomy phase.

They tap their canes in silence through the storm,

Forgetting their most mournful groan and days.

The leaves that lost the fight with falling down,

Have stripped away their summer shades of green,

And sooner, later, every leaf must drown

In withered foliage of this transient scene.

What could sustain their warmth if they must die?

Does their green yearning still remain behind?

Do precious, weary souls rise up and fly,

To break the chains that old age cast and bind?

No! That is not what’s written for us all!

For even in the autumn, spring can thrive!

But pine-needles they must be through the fall,

Not heavy oak leaves struggling to survive…

My final autumn strikes with heavy hand.

I shrink. A fading leaf I will not be!

A stubborn needle, small upon the land,

Ready to live two centuries, wild and free…

To still remain so radiant, fresh, and green,

And to endow everyone with breath —

This is my shared, wise truth, profound, serene,

For travelers to the Life that knows no death.

I AUTUMN...

By Yasen Vedrin

(A Potion of Sighs)

I autumn... Don't ask me for answers or why...

I am seasonally bound, it appears.

And a rainbow of leaf-fall is filling my eye,

And its magic is yours through the years.

I autumn... Subjected to rains of old traces,

Of days gone by, not to forget.

And a drizzling sky recites rhymes in my spaces

Of how green turns to yellow and wet.

I autumn... And within its wise, cyclical spinning,

The world covers me with its shade.

I am tired of youth in my dreams from beginning.

Perhaps old age is happily made.

I autumn... A silver bloom chases my track

From a radiant summer, now cold.

Embrace me! For life is a yearning turned back —

To transform all our silver to gold.

I autumn... Don't ask me for answers or why...

A gilded Yesenin, perhaps, in my soul...

And a barely perceived, subtle grief wanders by,

Making senses shed tears for the whole.

MY WIND!

By Yasen Vedrin

(A Potion of Sighs)

The morning caresses me, blue-eyed.

The autumn is whispering, pale-faced.

The long-sleeping yearnings inside

Awake to the scent leaves have placed.

All night through the window, flung wide,

The cool wind has frolicked and played.

With palettes snatched down from the sky,

Its art on my floor it has laid.

A golden-bright autumn design.

How dare I to step? I must fly...

A carpet of innocence fallen, divine.

Dear God! Is it real to the eye?

Each leaf is a magical sign,

Turned gold in the delicate sheet.

As if a new childhood is mine —

Awake by a tree, fresh and sweet.

As if my dear mother is near,

A quince in my hand she has placed.

The sunbeams are laughing and clear,

Like fish in a river enchased...

My wind! You have made me smile bright!

Now paint everything in my soul!

I’ll stay in your tenderness quiet —

Reborn with my childhood made whole.

Fly deep in my spirit, fly high —

Like dreams under skies old and vast.

See tears in my hand, clear and dry?

They’re dew from my eyes of the past...

Please, keep painting, do not depart,

With yellows of autumn embrace.

My reward is a verse from the heart

To kiss your invisible face...