Marina Tsvetaeva- the Essential Poetry Read online

  — Michael M. Naydan

  From EVENING ALBUM

  (1910)

  THE SUICIDE

  It was an evening of music and tenderness,

  Everything in the cottage garden blooming.

  His mother’s eye shone when

  She looked into his pensive eyes!

  After she had disappeared in the pond

  And the circles of the water had calmed,

  He realized that an evil sorcerer

  Had lured her there with the wave of his evil wand.

  A flute from a distant dacha sobbed

  In the radiance of pinkish rays...

  He understood — before this, he was someone’s,

  Now he’s become a beggar who’s no one’s.

  He cried out “Momma!” one more time,

  Then made his way, as though raving,

  To his small bed without a word

  About his dear mother in the pond.

  Though above his pillow there was an icon,

  He was frightened! “Please come home!”

  ...He sobbed quietly. Suddenly from the balcony

  A voice called to him: “My baby boy!”

  .....................................................

  In an elegant slender envelope they found

  Her “Forgive me” note: “Love and sorrow together

  Are always stronger than death.”1

  Stronger than death... Yes, they are!..

  * * *

  DIE STILLE STRASSE

  Die stille Strasse: young leaves

  Brightly rustle, bending over the fence,

  At home — in a dream… With a radiant child’s gaze

  We look upward, where the azure grows dim.

  * * *

  With vacant faces we repeat the German words

  In a chorus after Fräulein.

  And having begun to daydream, the air is silent,

  In which an evening bell can barely be heard singing.

  * * *

  Footsteps resound sharply in a steady beat.

  Die stille Strasse has made its farewell with the day

  And peacefully sleeps to the rustle of trees.

  * * *

  That’s right. We’ll still sigh time and again over

  Its loss on the path, in boundless Moscow.

  The street whose name remains a mystery for us.

  * * *

  A PRAYER

  Christ and God! I thirst for a miracle

  Here, right now, at the break of day!

  O, let me die while all of life

  Is still like a book for me.

  * * *

  You’re wise. You will not sternly say:

  “Endure, your time has not yet come.”

  You have given me far too much!

  I thirst at once for every road!

  * * *

  I want it all: with a gypsy’s heart

  To go to pilfer to the tune of a song,

  To suffer for all to the sound of an organ

  To rush into battle like an Amazon;

  * * *

  To tell fortunes in a black tower by the stars,

  To lead children onward through the shadows...

  So yesterday would become a legend,

  So every day would be a mad spree!

  * * *

  I love the cross, the silk, the helmets.

  My soul is but a trail of moments...

  You gave me a childhood better than a fairy tale,

  Now give me death at seventeen!

  Tarusa, September 26, 19092

  * * *

  ANOTHER PRAYER

  I once again kneel before You, Lord,

  In the distance having seen Your starry crown.

  Let me understand, Christ, that all is not just shadows,

  Let me embrace something other than a shadow at last!

  * * *

  I am worn out by these long days

  Without a concern, without a goal, always in a partial haze…

  You can love shadows, but can you live with shadows

  At the age of eighteen on the earth?

  * * *

  After all they sing and write that happiness is at the beginning!

  I wish I could blossom with my entire rejoicing soul!

  But isn’t it true: there’s no happiness, of course, outside of sadness?

  Besides the dead, there aren’t any friends, are there?

  * * *

  After all, have those kindled by a different faith for ages

  Hidden from the world in the desertedness of deserts?

  No, no need for smiles acquired at the price

  Of desecrating divine sacraments.

  * * *

  I don’t need bliss at the price of humiliation.

  I don’t need love! I’m not mourning over it.

  Allow me, Savior, to give up my soul — only shadows

  Inhabit the quiet kingdom of my beloved shades.

  Moscow, Fall 1910

  From MAGIC LANTERN

  (1912)

  TO MOMMA

  How much dark oblivion has forever

  Carried away from her heart!

  We remember her sad lips and

  Her sumptuous strands of hair,

  * * *

  A lingering sigh above a notebook

  And a ring with bright rubies,

  While your face smiled

  Above our children’s bed.

  * * *

  We remember your youthful sorrow

  Over wounded birds

  And tiny droplets of tears on your long lashes

  After the piano had grown silent.

  * * *

  AFTER THE GUESTS LEAVE

  Now they’re leaving. The gate has begun to sing

  In the distance in a doleful screech.

  An oh so sorrowful note…

  Now they’re gone.

  * * *

  Why did momma take off her earrings?

  And unlatch her bracelets,

  Put away the candy in a little cupboard

  As though she were locking it in prison.

  * * *

  Momma dresses the red furniture,

  The delight of the children, in slipcovers…

  This is always the way it is

  After all the guests have gone!

  * * *

  AUTUMN IN TARUSA

  The bright morning isn’t hot,

  You run through the meadow lightly clad.

  A barge slowly slips

  Down the Oka River.

  * * *

  You keep repeating certain words

  Against your will.

  Somewhere bells in the field

  Are weakly jingling.

  * * *

  Is it in the field? Or in the meadow?

  Are they on their way to thresh the grain?

  Eyes glance for an instant

  Into someone’s fate.

  * * *

  The blue distance between pines,

  Chatting and humming in the threshing barn…

  And autumn smiles

  To our spring.

  * * *

  Life has flown wide open, nevertheless…

  Ah, sweet golden days!

  How distant they are, God!

  Lord, how distant they are!

  * * *

  TO LITERARY PROSECUTORS

  Should I conceal everything, so people would forget,

  Like melted snow and a melted candle?

  Be just a handful of dust in the future

  Beneath a grave’s cross? I don’t want that!

  * * *

  Every instance, trembling from pain,

  I return again to just one thing:

  To die forevermore! Is this why

  I’m given to understand everything by fate?

  * * *

  The evening in the nursery, where I’ll sit down

  To play with my dolls, a str
and of a spider’s web in

  the meadow,

  A soul condemned by the way it looks…To live it for everyone and to understand all!

  * * *

  For this I (power is in the revealed)

  Give up for judgment everything dear to me,

  So that youth would eternally keep

  My restless adolescence.

  From POEMS OF ADOLESCENCE

  (1913-1915)

  *

  I dedicate these lines

  To those who’ll ready my coffin.

  They’ll open up my high and

  Detestable brow.

  * * *

  Changed for no reason,

  With a tiny wreath on my brow,

  I’ll lie in the coffin

  A stranger to my own heart.

  * * *

  You won’t notice on my face:

  “I hear everything! I see all!

  In the coffin it hurts even more

  To be like everyone else.”

  * * *

  In a snow-white dress — a color I’ve hated

  Since childhood!

  Will I lie down — with someone nearby? —

  Till the end of time?

  * * *

  Listen! — I won’t accept it!

  This is a trap!

  It’s not me they’ll lower into the ground,

  Not me.

  * * *

  I know! — Everything will burn to a crisp!

  And the grave will give no shelter

  To anything I loved

  Or by which I lived.

  Moscow, Spring 1913

  * * *

  *

  For my poems, written so early,

  When I didn’t even know I was — a poet,

  Flitting off like splashes from a fountain,

  Like rocket sparks from fireworks,

  * * *

  Like little demons forcing their way

  Into a sanctuary, where there is sleep and incense,

  For my poems about youth and death,

  — For my unread poems!

  * * *

  Scattered in dust in bookstores

  Where no one has bought or will buy them,

  For my poems, like expensive wines,

  Their time will come.

  Koktebel, May 13, 1913

  * * *

  *

  With great tenderness — because

  Soon I will be leaving you all —

  I’m rethinking who’ll

  Get my wolf fur coat,

  * * *

  Who’ll get — my body-caressing plaid

  And the thin walking stick with the head of a Borzoi,

  And who’ll get — my silver bracelet

  Speckled with turquoise...

  * * *

  And all my notes and all my flowers

  That I can’t take care of...

  My last rhyme — and you,

  My last night!

  September 22, 1915

  * * *

  *

  I was given both a pleasant voice

  And the enchanting curve of my brow,

  Fate has kissed me on the lips,

  Fate has taught me to excel.

  * * *

  I have paid a generous tribute to lips,

  I have scattered roses over coffins...

  But Fate has grabbed me on the run

  By the hair with its heavy hand!

  December 31, 1915

  * * *

  GIRLFRIEND3

  1

  Are you happy? Won’t You say? Hardly!

  It’s better — just let it be!

  It seems you’ve kissed far too many others,

  Hence my sorrow.

  * * *

  All the heroines of Shakespeare’s tragedies

  I see in You.

  No one has been able to save You,

  Tragic youthful lady.

  * * *

  You’ve become so tired of repeating

  A lover’s cantillation!

  The cast-iron band on your bloodless hand —

  Is so revealing!

  * * *

  I love You. — The way the thundercloud

  Over You is — a sin —

  For You being so caustic and biting

  And better than all the rest,

  * * *

  For us and our lives being so different

  In the darkness of roads,

  For Your inspired temptations

  And fate so dark,

  * * *

  For me saying good-bye to You,

  My stern-browed demon,

  For You — no matter what I do! —

  Cannot be saved!

  * * *

  For this trembling, for — am I really

  Dreaming a dream? —

  For this ironic allure,

  That You aren’t — him.4

  October 16, 1914

  * * *

  2

  I beckon yesterday’s dream

  To the caress of a plush lap throw.

  What was this? – Who was the victor? –

  And who – the vanquished?

  * * *

  I’m rethinking everything again,

  Tormenting myself with everything anew.

  Was there love in that,

  for which I don’t have a word?

  * * *

  Who was the hunter? – And who – the trophy?

  All is diabolically upside down!

  What did the Siberian cat

  Understand of this, purring all the time?

  * * *

  In this duel of self-wills

  Who was just holding a ball?

  Whose heart – was it Yours or mine

  That raced at a gallop?

  * * *

  Anyway – what was this?

  What do I long for and regret?

  So I don’t know: was I the victor?

  Or the vanquished?

  October 23, 1914

  * * *

  17

  Remember: one hair on my head is more precious

  To me than all other heads combined.

  Go your way... “You, too,

  And You too, and You.”

  * * *

  Fall out of love with me, fall out of love with me, everyone!

  Watch over someone other than me early in the morning!

  So I can serenely step outside

  And just stand in the wind.

  May 6, 1915

  From MILEPOSTS I

  (1916)

  I opened an iron box.

  I took out a tearful gift.

  A ring with an enormous pearl,

  With a pearl so huge.

  * * *

  I snuck onto the porch like a cat,

  Setting off with my face into the wind.

  The wind blew, birds swarmed,

  Swans to the left, to the right – ravens...

  Our paths are — in different directions.

  * * *

  You’ll leave — with the first clouds,

  Your path will be through a forest deep

  through burning sands.

  * * *

  You’ll spend your soul — calling out.

  You’ll cry out — your eyes.

  * * *

  And above me — an owl will scream,

  And above me — the grass will rustle.

  Moscow January 1916

  * * *

  *

  I planted a tiny apple tree:

  For little ones — a toy,

  For an old person — youth,

  For the gardener — joy.

  * * *

  I lured a white turtledove

  Into the bed chamber:

  For the thief — an annoyance,

  For the woman of the house — delight.

  * * *

  I gave birth to a little daughter —

  A blue-eyed one,

  A turtledove �
�� by her voice,

  A tiny little sun — by her hair.

  To the woe of maidens,

  To the woe of young men.

  January 23, 1916

  * * *

  POEMS ABOUT MOSCOW

  1

  Clouds — everywhere,

  Cupolas — all around.

  Over all of Moscow —

  As long as my hands can do it!

  I raise you up, my finest burden,

  My weightless

  Tree!

  * * *

  In this wondrous city,

  In this peaceful city,

  Where I’d feel joyous

  Even if I were dead —

  For you to reign, for you to mourn,

  To accept the crown,

  O my first-born!

  You fast during Lent,

  Don’t blacken your brows,

  And respect all

  Fortyfold churches.

  Walk all over — in youthful stride! —

  The entire expanse

  Of the seven hills.