...Not seeing the Sun and stars,
Not knowing what happens in the world,
All alone, in an empty flat
The artist Massov is painting Light...
The artist - a person like anyone else
But experienced in the Invisible Struggle,
The never stopping prayer
Throbbing inside him ceaselessly.
He paints night and day
He paints with tempera and chalk.
He paints white on white
And God's light is streaming within him!
Dawn wraps the building
In its crimson robe.
The artist Massov saunters down
to the deli for kefir.
And again hurries to return to his flat
That is wider than the sky and the universe,
To prop up the Otherworldly, Imperishable Light
Against the contemptible canvas!
...Fifteen years ago
I cried before dawn
And kept repeating as if in defense:
"The artist Massov is painting Light".
a translation by Artem Portnoy
