The church bells coming from the lake’s depths

There were grey wharves
made of rotten logs,
From where we, children,
dove into the lake,
There were the drowned pontoons
on which we danced,
gazing into the ochre waters.
This paysage has played no less a part
in our lives than people and games.
There was a legend under which
a golden-domed church,
Millennia-old,
resisted the Tatar invasion.
It sank into the lake
and vanished in its waves,
continued to exist in folk-tales
to this day,
but was invisible.
In fables, the church bells
coming from the lake’s depths
at twilight
suggested the chapel was yet alive –
Was it or was it not?
In those days, we, children,
played pilgrims, spent secret nocturnes,
Sat on the bank,
hoping for sunken bells to toll from underwater.
We didn’t know the way to pray,
but we believed  –
Faith was there
where there was
nothing
except the wharves…
The rotten logs, oh, rotten logs,
Once I believed in fairy tales,
Now, I do – in dreams and in an extra-
a realm unseen, transparent
and passing through the body,
Through a fractured heart
the light shines,
Surrounded by phantoms,
I am afraid
of what does not exist,
I look into my memory, into its face,
offering so much to draw from,
to imagine.