Bride of Ice Page 3

  Then a brutal surge of snow

  turns everything white.

  I could only follow the two of you

  for a matter of seconds.

  I stroke the long hair on my

  coat and feel no anger…

  Your little Kay has frozen to death

  O great Snow Queen.

  26 October 1914

  6

  Night weeps over coffee grounds

  as it looks to the east.

  Its mouth is a tender blossom

  but it has a monstrous flower.

  Soon a young, thin moon will take

  the place of scarlet dawn,

  and I shall give you many

  combs and rings.

  The young moon between the branches

  never guards anyone.

  I shall give you ear-rings

  bracelets, and chains!

  Your bright eyes sparkle, as if

  from under a heavy mane.

  Are your horses jealous – those

  thoroughbreds, so light on their feet?

  9

  You entered with incomparable panache,

  and I dared not touch your hand.

  Already I could feel the pain of longing

  as if you were my very first love.

  My heart whispered: Darling!

  I forgave you in advance,

  without knowing your name, I murmured

  Love me! Please love me!

  I looked at the curve of your lips,

  that deliberate arrogance,

  those heavy eyebrows – and

  my heart began to thunder.

  Your dress was a silky black shell,

  your voice husky as a gypsy;

  everything about you sweetly poignant

  – even the fact you are no beauty.

  You won’t fade over the summer even

  if your flower and stalk are not steely,

  for you are meaner and sharper than any

  – from what island do you come,

  with that huge fan, and walking stick?

  In every bone, and wicked finger

  I make out the gentleness of a woman

  and the audacity of a boy.

  How shall I treat these ironies in verse

  or explain to the world

  all the qualities I see in you?

  My stranger with Beethoven’s brow!

  14 January 1915

  10

  How can I forget that perfume

  of White Rose and tea,

  those figures of Sèvres above

  a blazing fireplace.

  There we stood. I was dressed

  in splendid golden silk.

  You – in a black knit jacket

  with a winged collar.

  As you entered, I remember your face

  was almost colourless;

  you stood biting a finger,

  your head slightly tilted.

  A helmet of red hair surrounded

  your powerful forehead.

  You were neither woman nor boy –

  but stronger than I was.

  With no reason to move, I stood up

  and at once people gathered round –

  someone even tried, as if in a joke,

  to introduce us.

  How calmly you put

  your hand in mine,

  and left in my palm a lingering

  splinter of ice.

  You took out a cigarette.

  I offered you a light,

  afraid of what I might do

  if you looked into my face.

  I remember how our glasses clinked

  over a blue vase. Please

  be my Orestes, I murmured

  – and gave you a flower.

  Your grey eyes flashed as you took

  a handkerchief out of your

  black suede purse – and slowly

  let it drop to the floor.

  28 January 1915

  11

  Many eyes sparkle under the sun

  and one day is not

  like another. Let me tell you this,

  in case I am unfaithful:

  whoever I am kissing

  in the hour of love,

  whatever vows I make

  in the dark of night

  – since I can’t live like

  an obedient child

  or bloom like a flower without

  looking at anyone else –

  I swear by this cross of cypress

  – you know it well –

  if you whistle under my window

  all my love will re-awaken.

  22 February 1915

  12

  Moscow’s hills are blue, the warm air

  tasting of dust and tar.

  I sleep all day or else I laugh

  as if well again after winter.

  I go home quietly without regretting

  the poems I haven’t written,

  the sound of wheels, or roasted almonds

  matter more than a quatrain.

  My head is magnificently empty,

  my heart dangerously full;

  my days are like tiny waves

  seen from a small bridge.

  Perhaps my look is too tender

  for air that is barely warm.

  I am already sick of summer –

  though hardly recovered from winter.

  13 March 1915

  13

  Let me repeat, at the end of our love

  on the very eve of parting,

  how much I loved those powerful

  hands of yours,

  those eyes which do – or don’t –

  look someone over, and

  nevertheless demand a report

  on my most casual glance.

  Three times is your passion cursed!

  God sees all of you

  and insists on repentance

  for every casual sigh.

  Now let me say again, wearily

  – don’t be too eager to hear this –

  your soul now stands

  in the way of my own.

  And something else, since

  it is almost evening –

  that mouth of yours was young

  when we first kissed,

  your gaze was bold and light then

  your being – five years old…

  How fortunate are those

  who have not crossed your path.

  28 April 1915

  14

  Some names are like sultry flowers

  and glances like dancing flames.

  There are dark and sinuous mouths

  whose corners are deep and moist.

  There are women with hair like helmets

  whose fans smell faintly of ruin.

  They are thirty. Why would you need

  the soul of a Spartan child?

  Annunciation Day 1915

  15

  I want to look in the mirror, where

  sleep is wrapped in mist.

  I wonder where you are going

  and where you will find solace.

  I see the mast of a ship

  with you on the deck,

  or standing in the smoke of a train

  in the sad fields of evening.

  There is dew on the night grass

  and above that – ravens.

  I send you my blessings now

  to every corner of those fields

  3 May 1915

  16

  At first, you loved beauty

  above everything, curls

  with a delicate touch of henna,

  the melancholy sound of the zurna,

  notes struck by a stallion’s

  hooves against flint

  or semi-precious stones

  with patterned facets.

  In the next love, your second:

  an arch of fine eyebrows

  and a silky carpet from

  rose-coloured Bokhara,
<
br />   Every finger was ringed then,

  There was a birthmark on her cheek,

  tanned flesh through Victorian

  lace – and London at midnight!

  Your third love was sweet

  in some different way…

  – But what trace remains in your heart

  of me, my faithless one?

  14 July 1915

  *

  The clock – what time is it?

  The hour has sounded.

  I can barely make out

  the hollows of huge eyes,

  the flowing satin of your dress.

  I can barely see you.

  Next door the lights are out.

  Someone is making love.

  I am frightened by the

  shape of your face.

  It is half dark in the room;

  Night is as lonely as if

  a piece of ice pierced by moonlight

  marks the window.

  – Did you surrender?

  I did not fight.

  The voice froze as if from

  A hundred miles away or the moon itself

  Moonbeams stood between us

  transforming the world.

  The metal of your dark

  furiously red hair

  glowed unbearably.

  History itself is forgotten,

  in the flint of the moon, the looking glass

  splinters: there are distant hooves,

  and the squeak of a carriage. The street light

  has gone out. Time no longer moves.

  Soon the cock will crow. And two

  young women will part.

  1 November 1914

  Your narrow, foreign shape

  Your narrow, foreign shape

  is bent above written pages,

  with a Turkish shawl, dropped

  over you like a cloak.

  You make a single line, which

  is broken and black at once.

  And you are cold – in erotic

  gaiety – or unhappiness.

  All your life is a fever to be

  perfected, yet this young

  demon, who on earth is she

  with her cloudy, dark face?

  Everyone else is worldly,

  while you remain playful,

  with harmless lines of poetry –

  trifles – aimed at the heart.

  In a sleepy, morning hour –

  at five a.m. – I discover

  I’ve fallen in love with you,

  Anna Akhmatova

  1915

  I know the truth

  I know the truth – give up all other truths!

  No need for people anywhere on earth to struggle.

  Look – it is evening, look, it is nearly night:

  what do you speak of, poets, lovers, generals?

  The wind is level now, the earth is wet with dew,

  the storm of stars in the sky will turn to quiet.

  And soon all of us will sleep under the earth, we

  who never let each other sleep above it.

  1915

  What is this gypsy passion for separation

  What is this gypsy passion for separation, this

  readiness to rush off – when we’ve just met?

  My head rests in my hands as I

  realise, looking into the night

  that no one turning over our letters has

  yet understood how completely and

  how deeply faithless we are, which is

  to say: how true we are to ourselves.

  1915

  We shall not escape Hell

  We shall not escape Hell, my passionate

  sisters, we shall drink black resins –

  we who sang our praises to the Lord

  with every one of our sinews, even the finest,

  we did not lean over cradles or

  spinning wheels at night, and now we are

  carried off by an unsteady boat

  under the skirts of a sleeveless cloak,

  we dressed every morning in

  fine Chinese silk, and we would

  sing our paradisal songs at

  the fire of the robbers’ camp,

  slovenly needlewomen (all

  our sewing came apart), dancers,

  players upon pipes: we have been

  the queens of the whole world!

  first scarcely covered by rags,

  then with constellations in our hair, in

  gaol and at feasts we have

  bartered away heaven,

  in starry nights, in the apple

  orchards of Paradise.

  – Gentle girls, my beloved sisters,

  we shall certainly find ourselves in Hell!

  1915

  Some ancestor of mine

  Some ancestor of mine was a violinist

  and a thief into the bargain.

  Does this explain my vagrant disposition

  and hair that smells of the wind?

  Dark, curly-haired, hooknosed, he is

  the one who steals apricots

  from the cart, using my hand. Yes,

  he is responsible for my fate.

  Admiring the ploughman at his labour,

  he used to twirl a dog rose

  in his lips. He was always unreliable

  as a friend, but a tender lover.

  Fond of his pipe, the moon, beads, and all

  the young women in the neighbourhood…

  I think he may have also been a coward,

  my yellow-eyed ancestor.

  His soul was sold for a farthing,

  so he did not walk at midnight

  in the cemetery. He may have worn

  a knife tucked in his boot.

  Perhaps he pounced round corners

  like a sinuous cat.

  I wonder suddenly: did

  he even play the violin?

  I know nothing mattered to him

  any more than last year’s snow.

  That’s what he was like, my ancestor.

  And that’s the kind of poet I am.

  1915

  I’m glad your sickness

  I’m glad your sickness is not caused by me.

  Mine is not caused by you. I’m glad to know

  the heavy earth will never flow away

  from us, beneath our feet, and so

  we can relax together, and not watch

  our words. When our sleeves touch

  we shall not drown in waves of rising blush.

  I’m glad to see you calmly now embrace

  another girl in front of me, without

  any wish to cause me pain, as you

  don’t burn if I kiss someone else.

  I know you never use my tender name,

  my tender spirit, day or night. And

  no one in the silence of a church

  will sing their Hallelujahs over us.

  Thank you for loving me like this,

  for you feel love, although you do not know it.

  Thank you for the nights I’ve spent in quiet.

  Thank you for the walks under the moon

  you’ve spared me and those sunset meetings unshared.

  Thank you. The sun will never bless our heads.

  Take my sad thanks for this: you do not cause

  my sickness. And I don’t cause yours.

  1915

  We are keeping an eye on the girls

  We are keeping an eye on the girls, so that the kvass

  doesn’t go sour in the jug, or the pancakes cold,

  counting over the rings, and pouring anis

  into the long bottles with their narrow throats,

  straightening tow thread for the peasant woman:

  filling the house with the fresh smoke of

  incense and we are sailing over Cathedral Square

  arm in arm with our godfather, silks thundering.

  The wet nurse has a screeching cockerel

  in
her apron – her clothes are like the night.

  She announces in an ancient whisper that

  a dead young man lies in the chapel.

  And an incense cloud wraps the corners

  under its own saddened chasuble.

  The apple trees are white, like angels – and

  the pigeons on them – grey – like incense itself.

  And the pilgrim women sipping kvass from the ladle

  on the edge of the couch, is telling

  to the very end a tale about Razin

  and his most beautiful Persian girl.

  1916

  No one has taken anything away

  No one has taken anything away –

  there is even a sweetness for me in being apart.

  I kiss you now across the many

  hundreds of miles that separate us.

  I know: our gifts are unequal, which is

  why my voice is – quiet, for the first time.

  What can my untutored verse

  matter to you, a young Derzhavin?

  For your terrible flight I give you blessing.

  Fly, then, young eagle! You