Marina Tsvetaeva- the Essential Poetry Read online

  7.

  At the hour when my dear brother

  Passed the last elm tree

  (the last in the line of waved farewells).

  There were tears — larger than eyes.

  * * *

  At the hour when my dear friend

  Sailed around the last cape

  * * *

  (Of mental sighs: return!), there were hands

  Waving — wider than outstretched arms.

  * * *

  As though hands extended after you, all the way from the shoulder!

  Like lips following after, — to cast a spell!

  Speech lost sounds,

  My hand lost fingers.

  * * *

  At the hour when my dear guest...

  — Lord, look at us! —

  There were tears bigger than

  Eyes and the Atlantic’s

  Stars...

  March 26, 1923

  IN PRAISE OF TIME

  For Vera Arenskaya27

  The refugee pavement!

  It whooped and ran off

  Like the headlong rush of wheels.

  Time! I can’t keep up with you.

  * * *

  Captured in chronicles and

  In kisses... but rustling

  In a small stream of sands...

  Time, you will deceive me!

  * * *

  With clock hands, with ruts

  Of wrinkles — and with America’s

  Novelties... — The jug is empty! —

  Time, you will give me short measure!

  * * *

  Time, you will betray me!

  Like an unfaithful wife — like a toy

  You will drop me... — “Time is short, but it is ours!”

  * * *

  — Your trains have a different

  Destination!..

  * * *

  I have been born

  Outside of time! In vain, in futility

  You fight against it! A caliph for an hour:

  Time! I will pass you!

  May 10, 1923

  * * *

  DIALOGUE OF HAMLET WITH HIS CONSCIENCE

  “She is at the bottom where there is silt

  And seaweed... She went to sleep

  Among it, but even there, there is no sleep!”

  “But I loved her

  As forty thousand brothers

  Could not have loved her!”

  “Hamlet!

  * * *

  She is at the bottom where there is silt:

  Silt!... And the last wreath

  Came to the surface on driftwood...”

  “But I loved her

  As forty thousand...”

  “Less,

  * * *

  All the same, than one lover.

  She is at the bottom where there is silt.”

  — “But was it she I —

  (bewildered)

  — loved??”

  June 5, 1923

  * * *

  THE CURTAIN

  With a curtain’s waterfalls, like foam —

  Like a pine forest — like a flame — roaring by.

  The curtain has no mystery from the stage:

  (You are the stage, and I am the curtain).

  With dream-like thickets (in the lofty

  Hall confusion streamed forth)

  I hide the hero in his struggle with Fate,

  The place of action — and — the hour.

  With waterfall rainbows, with the avalanche

  Of laurels (after all, you entrusted yourself to me! you knew!)

  I screen you from the hall,

  (I enchant the hall!)

  The mystery of the curtain! With the dream-like forest

  Of sleepy potions, grasses, grains...

  (Behind the already quivering drape

  The pace of a tragedy — like — a storm!)

  Loge seats, weep! Sound the alarm, balcony!

  Appointed hour, come into being! Hero, be!

  The curtain moves — like — a sail,

  The curtain moves — like — a breast.

  From the last heart, O bowels,

  I screen you. — An outburst!

  Over a stung Phaedra

  The curtain rose — like — a vulture.28

  Take it! Rant! Look! Isn’t that blood?

  Prepare the vat!

  I will give my sovereign wound to the last drop!

  (The spectator is white, the curtain glowing).

  And then, with a compassionate cover

  For the dale, roaring by like a banner.

  The curtain has no mystery from the hall.

  (The hall is life, and I am the curtain).

  June 23, 1923

  * * *

  A MINUTE

  A minute: passing: you will pass!

  The same way both passion and friend pass by!

  Today let’s throw out what tomorrow

  Would be torn out of our hands!

  * * *

  Minute: measuring! Giving measure

  To the minuteness, hear me out:

  That which ended

  Never had begun. So lie, so flatter

  * * *

  Others still susceptible to a teenager’s case

  Of measles, who failed to grow up

  Out of the way of things. Who are you

  To squander the sea? The watershed

  * * *

  Of a living soul? O, shoal! O, trifle!

  The glorious King of Bounties

  Had no more glorious kingdom

  Than the inscription: “This, too, shall pass”29 —

  * * *

  On a signet ring... On backward paths

  Who hasn’t measured the vanity

  Of your clock-face Arabias

  And the pining of pendulums?

  * * *

  Minute: languishing! Illusion lingering

  To gallop! Crushing us

  Into dust and into trash You, Minute,

  That will pass: alms for dogs!

  * * *

  O, how I am eager to leave that world

  Where pendulums tear the soul,

  Where the missed meeting of minutes

  Rules my eternity.

  August 12, 1923

  * * *

  THE PRAGUE KNIGHT30

  Pale — faced

  Guard above the lapping of the age —

  Knight, knight,

  Guarding the river.

  * * *

  (O, will I find in it

  Peace from lips and hands?!)

  Guar — di — an

  On the watch of partings.

  * * *

  Oaths, rings...

  Yes, but like a stone into the river —

  How many of us

  For four centuries!

  * * *

  The permit into the water

  Is free. For the roses — to bloom!

  He dumped me — I’ll jump!

  That is revenge for you!

  * * *

  We will not tire —

  As long as there is passion!

  To avenge with bridges.

  Spread yourselves widely,

  * * *

  Wings! Into the mire

  Into the foam — as though into brocade!

  I won’t pay

  For the bridge’s — blame today!31

  * * *

  “Dare to jump down

  From the fateful bridge!”

  I am your height,

  Prague knight.

  * * *

  Whether sweetness, whether sadness

  Is in the river — you know better,

  Knight guarding

  The river of days.

  September 27,1923

  NOCTURNAL PLACES

  The darkest of nocturnal

  Places: a bridge. — Lips to lips!

  Really should we drag

  Our cross to disreputable places,

&
nbsp; * * *

  There: into the laughing gas

  Of gazes, of gauze... Into a Sodom that has a price?

  Onto a bunk, where everyone has been!

  Onto a bunk, where no one

  * * *

  Is alone... A night lamp dims.

  Maybe — conscience will sleep!

  (The truest of nocturnal

  Places is death! Water is more blissful

  * * *

  Than — the nocturnal confinement that has a price!

  Water is — smoother than bed sheets!

  * * *

  To love is — caprice and grief!

  There — into the cold blue!

  * * *

  If only we could arise into the beliefs

  Of the age! Having joined our arms!

  (For the body the river is — light,

  It is better to sleep than — to live!)

  * * *

  Love: a chill to the bone!

  Love: white-hot heat!

  Water loves — endings.

  The river — loves bodies.

  September 4, 1923

  * * *

  AN ATTEMPT AT JEALOUSY32

  How is your life with another, —

  Simpler, huh? — The stroke of an oar! —

  Like the receding shoreline

  The memory of me

  * * *

  Has gone quickly, me, a floating island

  (In the sky — not on the water!)

  Souls, souls! You should be sisters,

  Not mistresses!

  * * *

  How is your life with a common

  Woman? Without deities?

  Since you overthrew Her Majesty

  (Having yourself stepped down from the throne),

  * * *

  How is your life — busy —

  Hemming and hawing? Getting up — how?

  How do you cope, pauper,

  With the customs duty of immortal triviality?

  * * *

  “Enough of convulsions and trembling —

  Enough! I’ll rent myself a house.”

  How is your life with just anyone —

  My chosen one!

  * * *

  Is the food more suitable, tastier to eat?

  When you are fed up — you have yourself to blame...

  How is your life with an imitation —

  You, who trampled over Mt. Sinai!

  * * *

  How’s life with another’s woman,

  From this world? Loved — for being made from a rib?

  Doesn’t shame lash your brow

  Like the rein of mighty Zeus?33

  * * *

  How’s your life — how’s your health —

  Still able? How’s your singing — eh?

  How do you cope, pauper, with the wound

  Of immortal conscience?

  * * *

  How’s your life with market

  Goods? Is the rent too steep?

  After the marble of Carrara34

  How is your life with plaster

  * * *

  Dust? (God was sculpted

  From rubble — and smashed into bits!)

  How is your life with the one-thousandth one —

  You, who knew Lilith!35

  * * *

  Are you sated with the market’s novelty?

  Having grown cold to magic,

  How is your life with an earthly

  Woman, without a sixth

  * * *

  Sense? Well, say there: are you mindlessly happy?

  No? In an abyss without depth —

  How is your life, my dear? Is it any harder,

  Or is it the same as for me with another?

  November 19, 1924

  * * *

  *

  A scimitar? A fire?

  More modest — why such big words!

  * * *

  It is pain, as familiar to the eyes as the palm,

  As to lips —

  The name of one’s own child.

  December 1, 1924

  * * *

  *

  More ample than an organ’s sound more jangling than a tambourine

  Speech — and there is just one for all:

  * * *

  Oh, when it’s hard, and ah, when it’s marvelous,

  And when it doesn’t come easy — eh!

  * * *

  Ah from the Empyrean and oh over tilled fields,

  And acknowledge, poet,

  That the Muse has nothing

  Other than these ahs and ohs.

  * * *

  The most saturated rhyme

  Of deepest depths, the lowest tone.

  This is Solomon’s ahing

  Before the blushing Shulamite.36

  * * *

  Ah: is a heart being torn apart,

  The syllable on which you die.

  Ah, is a curtain suddenly gaping open.

  Oh: is a drayman’s yoke.

  * * *

  A wordsearcher, a verbal rogue,

  An open spigot of words,

  Eh, if at least once you have heard —

  The Polovtsian camp ahing in the night!37

  * * *

  He bent down, and perked up like a beast...

  Wrapped in moss, in the fur of the sound:

  Ah is — for it’s a gypsy camp

  Entirely! — and with the moon above!38

  * * *

  Behold a stallion, baring teeth a yard’s width,

  That neighs, anticipating a gallop.

  This is Oleg, who stumbled across

  His steed’s skull, and commissioned Pushkin

  To write a song.39 And — glowing in flight —

  In the great warriors’40 darkness —

  The invincible shouts of the flesh:

  Oh! — Eh! — Ah!41

  December 23, 1924

  * * *

  *

  Dis — tance: mileposts, miles...42

  We were placed — apart, seated — separately,

  So that we would quietly be

  At two different ends of the earth.

  * * *

  Dis — tance: mileposts, far-off places...

  They unglued us, unsoldered us,

  Crucifying us, they separated our two hands,

  But they didn’t know that it was the fusion

  * * *

  Of inspiration and sinews...

  They didn’t set us at odds — they scattered us,

  They split us apart...

  A wall and a ditch.

  They displaced us like eagle-

  * * *

  Conspirators: mileposts, far-off places...

  Didn’t make us despair — they discarded us.

  Along the slums of earthly latitudes

  They shoved us into separate corners like orphans.

  * * *

  Which one, which one is it, already — March?!

  They cut us — like a deck of cards!

  March 24, 1925

  FROM POEMS NOT PUBLISHED IN COLLECTIONS

  I like that you’re lovesick not with me,

  I like that I’m not lovesick with you,

  That the heavy earthly sphere

  Will never float off from beneath our feet.

  I like that I can be amusing with you –

  Be rakish with you – and not mince words,

  And not blush in a stifling wave

  When our sleeves slightly graze each other.

  * * *

  I also like that in my presence you

  Can coolly hug someone else,

  That you don’t predict I’ll burn in hellfire

  For the fact that it’s not you I’m kissing.

  And that, my dear one, you don’t mention

  My dear name in the daytime or at night – in vain...

  And that never in the silence of a church

  Will they sing over us: an alleluiah!43

  * * *<
br />
  Thank You with both heart and hand

  For the fact that you — without knowing it yourself! —

  Love me so: for my nighttime calm,

  For the rarity of our sunset meetings,

  For our non-strolls beneath the moon,

  For the sun not above our heads,

  For the fact that you’re lovesick — alas! — not with me,

  For the fact that I’m lovesick — alas! — not with you!

  May 3, 1915

  * * *

  *

  In the fatal folio

  There is no temptation for

  A woman. — Ars Amandi44

  For a woman is the entire earth.

  * * *

  The heart is — the potion

  Of love potions — surer than any other.

  From the cradle on, a woman

  Is someone’s mortal sin.

  * * *

  Ah, how far to heaven!

  Lips — close to yours in the fog...

  “God, judge me not!” You’ve never been

  A woman on this earth!

  September 29, 1915

  * * *