yevtushenko in tulsa

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       the sky is a herd of cattle jostling
     toward a green and endless horizon.
       standing in front of a large house,
   wide-rimmed hat on my head,
              in comfortable shoes,
       i look around at this place
         in america: football stadium,
       four-wheel drive, oil well.
       steel glare under explosions of sun.
     faded paint on a church, lawn
          of bent grass.
   i seem to be an old book, gray
     and cool with dust, in the back corner
         of a small bookstore, amid
   the books of paintings, covers
  blotted with red and blue, vermeer,
        goya, chagall.
  i look for a bench to sit on, a triangle
    of shade: i am a spectator
   watching groups of guests arriving
            for the wedding.
      i have brought no gift, no flowers.
   the grass is a green bed
     that whispers to me of sleep.
 i seem to be a rock fragment, obsidian
      cutting tool, jade figures
 round and open-eyed with life,
  arranged in rows in a museum drawer.
            the sun pounds down with huge booming sounds
             over the iron plains,
 ice breaks open in the siberian spring,
               the beating of a human heart.
           in faces of men and women, rough
               as wheat, round as bread,
            the knowledge to calculate water
          and understand the stars,
 in the arms and legs of men and women,
      in the voices of children,
  the power of flight, the rebuilding
            of the world. at the airport terminal,
          the transcontinental airliner waits
       in a humming dream of aluminum.
           under the high sunlight
 a tumbleweed rolls across the runway,
           skeleton of some creature from
   a waterless sea.
           standing in line or sitting
   with bundles of luggage, looking
         out the large windows filled
with blue, faces open and cool
           as pages of books, the passengers
            gaze away across spaces vast
      and earth-curved,
    land populated with wind and
  tree-covered mountain slopes,
  cooler latitudes green with lakes.