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!








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

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)