Poems to an Orphan

1


Icy tiara of mountains -

Is a frame to transitory sight.

A parting of ivy today

I traced on the castle's granite.

 

I have chased today on all roads

Towering figures of pines.

I have taken a tulip today

Like a child to the chin.



2

 

With surrounding of mountains I hug you,

With the granite crown of rocks.

(That you breathe easier and sleep tighter

I am busying you with talk.)

 

With the sides of a feudal castle,

With the ivy hands of down -

You know - in four hundred streams and rivers

Is the ivy, hugging the stone?

 

But I'm not woodbine - and not ivy!

Even you, dearer than my hand,

Are not flattened - and freely let out

Onto every side of my mind!

 

Round the flower-bed, round the well too,

Where to grey-haired ones stone will come,

With the round pledge of an orphan -

With the loneliness my round!

 

(Thus not one silver braid did weave

Into my light-brown braids!)

And with river, into two parting -

Island to create - and embrace.

 

With entire Savoy and Piedmont

And - cracking the ridge of blue -

I embrace you with blue horizon,

With two arms I'm embracing you.



 

3

 

(CAVE)

 

If I could - I would take you

Into the womb of a cave:

Into the cave of a dragon,

Into the panther's grove.

 

Into the panther's - paws -

If I could - I would take, so.

 

To bosom of nature, to bed of nature.

If I could - my own skin of panther

I'd take off... I would give in the grove - to study!

In bushy, in firry, in streamy, in ivy -

 

Where in darkness, in dusk, and in dreaming

Branches weave for eternal weddings!

 

Where in granite, in milk and in bast

For centuries intertwine arms -

Like branches –

And rivers...

 

Into cave without light, without trace into thicket.

In leaves, in ivy, in ivy - like in coat...

 

Not white light, not black bread: in dew

In leaves, in leaves - like in relationship too...

 

That did not knock on the door,

That henceforth did not happen,

That did not shout in window,

That for century didn't end!

 

But not enough - cave,

And not enough - grove!

If I could - I would take you

Into the womb of a cave.

 

If I could -

I would take.



 

4

 

On the ice floe -

Loved one,

On the mine -

Loved one,

On the ice floe, in Guyana, in Gehennah - loved one.

 

In the scab - desired one,

From churchyard - desired one:

Be a desired guest! Only teeth and bone - desired one!

 

With the under-knees angst

Till ruined darkness

By the last fight of the womb - pitied it is.

 

And there's no such hole, and there's no such abyss:

Loved one! Wished one! Pitied one! Struck by illness!



 

5

 

With rapid speech - with stream of water

Beating: - Loved one! Sick one! Dear!

 

With recitation - lingering blues:

Weak! Half-alive! Paper! See-through!

 

With lengthwise cut from stomach to pharynx:

Loved one! Wished one! Pitied one! Struck by illness!

 

6

 

Finally I've encountered

One that I do need:

Somebody possesses

Deadly need of me.

 

What to eye is rainbow,

Topsoil to the grain,

To man - is being needed

By another man.

 

I need more than rainbow,

More than rain or hand,

Need of my assistance

By another man.

 

This - wider than Ladoga

Than mountain more true -

Is need of my hand

By another's wound.

 

And for this that ulcerous

Palm you brought to me -

This my hand - immediately

In fire after thee!


 

<7>

 

In thoughts of another, otherwise,

Like a treasure chest not found,

Poppy by poppy, step by step - garden's

I cut off the head.

 

Thus, sometime in a dry summer,

On the very edge of field,

Death my light-haired head will sever

With an absent-minded hand.




By Marina Tsvetayeva
Translated from Russian by Ilya Shambat