Yana Kane
the handoff
Sometimes it’s just: Thank you. I trust you.
Sometimes I get detailed instructions:
how to interpret the opening stanza,
what tenses to use in the closing line…
The author tells me the story of the poem’s birth,
lingers on details,
as if to postpone the moment of handoff.
Permission to translate granted,
it’s time. I lead the poem away.
It follows me without fuss, composed—
a child who understands too much for its age.
Still, it keeps looking back,
gazing at the face of the poet,
taking in all that’s been familiar,
that now recedes and then disappears.
We set out to cross the space—blank and nameless—
that separates languages.
A silence stretches between us.
I might be tempted to fill it by talking,
tell the poem I know what it’s like,
leaving the mother tongue.
I’ve been a refugee.
I’ve translated my own words.
But I keep quiet.
This isn’t the time for my story.
Listening closely to the poem breathing,
I start to search for the right words,
the voice on the far side.
Yana Kane came to the United States as a refugee from the USSR. She holds a BSE from Princeton, a PhD in Statistics from Cornell, and an MFA in Creative Writing at Fairleigh Dickinson. She is grateful to Bruce Esrig for editing her texts.