A.Akhmatova, I Got The Skill To Live… – Translation (Rus.)

I got the skill to live so neat and wise,
To look at skies, to pray God in my heart
And walk through alleys in the evening time
In order to make weak the needless trouble.

When in a ravine rustle the burdocks barbed,
And droops the bunch of a yellow-red rowan,
Then I compose jolly verses ’bout
The perishable life, so perishable, glorious.

And I return back. Hands are licked by cat,
The pussy one, who murmurs sweet,
A bright fire burns there on the turret
Of the lake’s sawmill, as it seen.

Only sometimes I hear a loud cry
Of stork, who flied to a house roof on rear.
When you’d knock in my door at once –
I think that your arrival I’d not hear.