Marina Tsvetaeva, translated by Margaree Little
God
1
Face without disguise.
Severity. —Beauty.
All vestments, divided,
in you have sung.
Leaves fallen,
gravel loose.
All screams, screaming,
in you have subsided.
Victory over rust—
blood—steel.
All those on their backs,
in you, stood up.
October 1, 1922
2
Beggars and turtledoves,
the orphaned chant.
Are they not yours,
vestments stretched out
in the rush of trees?
Groves, coppices.
Books and temples
he gave to people—and rose up.
Secret protection,
coniferous rush of forest:
—Hide! — We won’t give you up!
With a goose’s footsteps
he baptized the earth for sleep.
Even the aspen
rushed forth—and she was forgiven:
even her, for the Son!
Beggars singing:
—Dark, oh, dark forest!
Beggars singing:
—Thrown off, the last cross!
God from the church has risen!
October 4, 1922
3
Oh, you will not tie him down
to your tokens and weights!
He is in the slightest hole
like the slenderest gymnast…
In drawbridges and
in migratory flocks,
in telegraph poles:
God—leaves us.
Oh, you won’t teach him to stay,
accustom him to fate!
In an impassable muddy road
he is—a gray ice drift.
Oh, you will not catch him
in a household saucer!
God—is not a tame begonia
blooming by the window.
All, under a vaulted roof,
waiting for the call and the architect.
Both poets and pilots—
all, desperate.
For he runs—and he moves.
For in the tome of stars—
from Az to Izhitsa
is just the hem of his cloak!
October 5, 1922
[Night. —Nor’easter. —Roar of soldiers. —Roar of waves.]
Night. —Nor’easter. —Roar of soldiers. —Roar of waves.
A wine warehouse pillaged. —Along the walls
and in the ditches—a precious stream,
and the moon dances in it, bloody.
The dazed plumes of poplars.
Birds singing, dazed—in the night.
The Tsar’s monument of yesterday—is empty,
and over the Tsar’s monument—night.
The harbor drinks, the barracks drink. The world—is ours!
Ours—the wine in the prince’s cellars!
The whole city, stamping like a bull,
drops down to the muddy puddle—and drinks.
In a cloud of wine—the moon. —Who’s there?
Be a comrade, cutie: drink up!
And in the city—a funny rumor:
somewhere two have drowned themselves in wine.
Feodosia, the last days of October
(Nota bene: The birds—were drunk!)
(from At the Edge: Selected Political Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva
forthcoming from Green Linden Press)
