We hope you'll enjoy this delightful poem by Boris Pasternak, poet and author of Doctor Zhivago.
The highway. Ditches. Woods. 
We wander off in light
After mushrooms, and we mark
The mileposts left and right.
We leave the open highway.
We scatter, ranging through
The forest gloom; we ramble
Ankle-deep in dew.
Through thickets deep in dark
The spears of sunlight rush
On brown and yellow mushrooms
Under every bramblebush.
They hide among the stumps
Where birds alight to rest,
And when we lose ourselves,
The shadows guide our quest.
So brief these autumn days
And sunset solitudes,
The twilight has no chance
To linger in the woods.
Our bags and baskets burst
With gathered stock before
We leave for home: pine mushrooms
Make almost half our store.
Behind our backs the dark
Still forest walls arise,
And, beautiful in death,
The day flames bright and dies.
A big black tail buck
deer. The smaller set
of antlers, typical of
this species, helps
them get through
our dense forests.
Sincere thanks to Librarian Midge Hayes of the Port Orford Library for tracking down this poem. It is reproduced on this website through the courtesy of University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309
Translated from the Russian by Eugene M. Kayden
Boris Pasternak: Poems
Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged
The Antioch Press, Yellow Springs, Ohio 1964, LCCN: 63-14379, Pages 244-245
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