{"id":1215,"date":"2019-06-03T00:34:00","date_gmt":"2019-06-03T00:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/?p=1215"},"modified":"2019-05-28T17:25:16","modified_gmt":"2019-05-28T17:25:16","slug":"the-baby-pochard-by-alyona-rychkova-zakablukovskaya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/2019\/06\/03\/the-baby-pochard-by-alyona-rychkova-zakablukovskaya\/","title":{"rendered":"The Baby Pochard by Alyona Rychkova-Zakablukovskaya"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Alyona Rychkova-Zakablukovskaya is an author from Russia. She was born in\u00a0Siberia in 1973. She studied Psychology at the Academy of Law, Economics and Management. Her first book of poetry, “In Bogorodsky Garden,” was published in Irkutsk in 2015. Her second book, “The Forty Winters\u00a0Bird” was published in 2018.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n


The Baby Pochard<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So many days have passed,
\nbut I remember this.
\nThe autumn glass of the chilly Angara.
\nA sleepy October day had lured us out, to the water beyond the Meget,
\nand gave us its gifts. We had expected silence,
\nbut there was none: just the voices of birds and wind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wading across the rapids, fishing rod in hand,
\nyou saw a moving blob.
\nAn indistinct speck was crossing the river,
\npropelling itself forward, despite the waves.
\nAt last, it stopped at the big man’s feet.
\nYou picked it up and recognized it.
\nA duckling, baby pochard, in your hands
\nwas trembling and jerking its legs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Animated by a funny spirit of struggle,
\nit was still rushing through the water.
\nIt swam, and swam, and swam.
\nBut soon its eyes got dim \u2013 the god of birds
\nblew the duckling’s conscience out.
\nThe shard of living universe on my bosom
\nGot warm and fell asleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had already made peace with the idea
\nthat I’d have to catch flies to feed it
\nand look for a foster family for it.
\nI was trying to remember someone
\nwho could adopt a duckling,
\nbut soon decided I would love it myself\u2026
\nBut suddenly the tiny thing returned to life and pulled itself together,
\naware of the warmth of the hands it didn’t need.
\nThe whole plan of its future captivity
\nflashed in the beads of its eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An anger and fright started to build up in its body.
\n“Set me free! Set me free or I’ll die!”
\nThe stubborn duckling, as quick as an athlete
\nwas slipping out of my fingers, testing my strength.
\n“Set me free! Set me free. I’m feeling bad! Bad! Bad!”
\nAfraid to break the duckling’s neck,
\nwe carried it to the river.
\nO, how proudly it swam! How happily it hurried,
\nsplitting the waves like a torpedo!
\nIt was so endlessly alive in this brief moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m sentimental. I am quick to tears.
\nTheir tart smoke already stings my eyes.
\nI had no regrets at all,
\nonly admiration and a quiet sorrow.
\nIt was so brave, so certain of its way.
\nSo what if it would probably be eaten by a bored burbot,
\nby hungry bird flying towards its cheeping.
\nOr killed by a two-legged beast
\nwho wears a cross or doesn’t wear it\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You may ask me why I relive the past.
\nI think the truth is simple.
\nI think that each of us has our own way,
\nmysterious and strange. And each of us has our own time.
\nThat’s why the baby pochard of my soul
\nstill flies to the hazy river\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(translated by Sergey Gerasimov from Russian)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alyona Rychkova-Zakablukovskaya is an author from Russia. She was born in\u00a0Siberia in 1973. She studied Psychology at the Academy of Law, Economics and Management. Her first book of poetry, “In Bogorodsky Garden,” was published in Irkutsk in 2015. Her second book, “The Forty Winters\u00a0Bird” was published in 2018.\u00a0 The Baby Pochard So many days have … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa867U-jB","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1215"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1233,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1215\/revisions\/1233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}