I went out for a walk last week...
The rain came too, and soaked my clothes...
Strong gusts of wetness lashed my cheek,
The water trickled to my toes.

When all at once the sun's bright ray
Pierced like a laser cloud and gloomÖ
It shone through the rain upon my way
And cheered my heavy step of doom.

What a joy is sunshine seen through rain!
As laughter may through tears be born...
And mightiest of all in Earth's domain --
A roseís smile seen through the thorn.
 

Ottawa
29 October 1999

English translation © John Woodsworth
9 November 1999
.

Now Winter's approaching, and over the fields --
Lies the first crystal frost of the season,
The flowers are fading, as old Autumn yields
Its control to the winter's first freezing!

The earth is at rest, and the forest's asleep,
After all its hard work of the Summer...
Loud thunder's no more, and a silence so deep
Spreads the world with a blanket of slumber.

But Nature's a-stirring, no sleep does she take,
In her state of perpetual motion...
For all living creatures new Spring will awake,
And bring forth a new birth with devotion.

And when our frail bodies succumb to their rest,
And earth's senses have long been forsaken,
Our soul will arise and will find itself blessed
As within us new thoughts are awakened.

Not death is approaching, but life without end
Shows its clear, unmistakable traces,
God bears us anew -- through His Christ we ascend
To His tender, eternal embraces. 
 
 

Ottawa
24 November 2000
 
 

English translation © John Woodsworth
8 December 2000
.
 

 

 
Farewell, departing year,
A century -- a 'centennium' --
Indeed, a whole millennium
In the history of mankind!
From all around our sphere
New songs of praise are sounding,
With anthems loud resounding
For days we still must find.

Farewell, departing world
Of obsolete vainglory,
The same old rotten story
Of evil without cure!
Equality, now unfurled
In place of wars and malice,
Gives soul and body solace,
A holiness so pure.

All hail the brand new age,
All hail the New Millennium!
We wish long life and then some,
And peace o'er all the earth!
All hail the man God made,
In His own image treasured,
The man time cannot measure --
Eternity's his worth.
 
 

Ottawa
1 January 2001
 

English translation © John Woodsworth
4 January 2001
.

Two poems on the events of 11 September 2001, also published in Iskra, may be found elsewhere on this site (click here).

Another poem by JW, entitled Tri slova [Three words], reprinted in Iskra, may be read on-line (in Russian only) on the Moskva neofitsial'naja site at:
http://www.in.msk.ru/rus/biblioteka/stihi/woodsw/006.shtml

NEW: Two poems by JW on the Yasnaya Polyana Dom otdykha appear on pages related to a report on the Tolstoy conferences in Russia in August 2003 (click here), which also appeared in Iskra.  Click here to read the report.
Click here for a poem about Turgenev's estate Spasskoe-Lutovinovo.

NEW: JW's tribute article to eminent Tolstoy scholar Lidija Dmitrievna Gromova-Opul'skaja appeared in Iskra (in  Russian and English translation) in the issue of 25 February 2004.

Special note:  The Russian fonts used to display the poems above were designed by JW in the late 1980s, using the font editor "FonTastic" on an old 512K Macintosh computer.