*
* *
Alive,
it’s not dead,
This
demon in me!
In
my body as in a cargo-hold,
In
myself as in a prison.
All
the world’s—walls.
The
exit’s—an axe.
(“All
the world’s—a stage,”
An
actor prattles).
And
he wasn’t cunning,
That
lame fool.
In
the body—as in a rumor,
In
the body—as in a toga!
May
you live many years!
Alive—value
that!
(As
only poets do
To
the bone—by some lie!)
No,
it’s not for us to step out,
My
singing brethren,
In
the body as in the quilted
Smocks
of our father.
Better
is what we deserve.
We
wither in this warmth.
In
the body—as in a close room,
In
ourselves—as in a caldera.
We
can’t keep the transitory
Splendors.
In
the body—as in a swamp,
In
the body—as in a vault,
In
the body—as in farthest
Exile.—Withered
away!
In
the body—as in the dark,
In
my temples—as in the vise
Of
an iron mask.
6
January 1925
*
* *
Squeezed
into this basin of my
Existence,
in this stupor of slackness,
Buried
alive under this avalanche
Of
days—as if in penal servitude, I let go of life.
These
are my winter-quarters, deathly and sealed.
Death: a hoarfrost on my beautiful lips—
I
have no wish for better health
From
God or come the spring.
11
January 1925
*
* *
What,
my Muse? Is she still alive?
Like
one captive taps her comrade
On
the ear, the little pit, gouged by a finger
--What
my Muse? Will she be here long?
Neighbors,
entangled by their hearts.
Prisoners
tapping out their exchanges.
What
my Muse? Is she still alive?
Impossible
to tell from the eyes of desire,
What’s
true or covered by a smile,
Or
by the neighbors, one rack to the right
--What,
dear boy? Did we manage a brief hour?
A
wink passed through a sick ward.
Eh,
my affairs! Eh, transparent, if somewhat
gauzy!
Like
those aerial battles above the Armies,
All
scribbled over with summer-lightning slants,
Eyebrows
passing flashes.
In
a funnel of dissipated haze—
Soldiers
passing trash-talking.
Come,
my Muse! A rhyme at least!
Of
cheek—like Ilium flaring up—
To
cheek: “No regrets! Hammering flat
All
my connections—Death! Later, then?”
My
sweet death-bed’s—
Last
exchange of embraces.
15
January 1925
*
* *
Into
grey—my temples,
Into
a ditch—my soldier,
--Sky!—like
the sea I bleed into you.
So
with every syllable—
At
your secret glance
I
turn,
I
primp.
Into
a skirmish—my Scythian,
Into
flagellation—my Kh’yst,
--Sea!—like
the sky I enter you.
So
with every line—
At
your secret signal
I
halt,
I
listen up.
At
every line: stop!
At
every turn—treasure.
--Eye!—like
light I settle into you.
I
melt. As longing
On
a guitar fret
I
retune myself,
I
restring myself.
Marriage
lies—not in the down
But
in the quills—of swans!
Marriages
that are divisive, and diverse!
So
at the mark of my dash—
As
at a secret sign
Your
eyebrows rise—
Do
you even trust me?
Not
in this weak tea
Of
rumor—with my breath so strong.
And
my stock—so considerable!
Under
your thumb
Like
the Lord’s wafer
I
am ground,
Broken
in two.
22
January 1925
* * *
"Marina Tsvetaeva was born in Moscow in 1892, and began to publish in her teens, to multiple good reviews by Russian literary critics. She was a working contemporary of Anna Akhmatova, Osip Mandelstam, Boris Pasternak and Rainer Maria Rilke, all of whom were important to her as rivals, lovers, correspondents and mentors, from time to time.
"Tsvetaeva left the Soviet Union in 1922 to reunite with her husband after a four year wartime separation, and lived as an exile in Berlin, Prague and Paris through 1939. The period of exile in Prague, lasting from August of 1922 to May of 1925, was a very productive period, with new poems arriving every other day or so, or sometimes two poems a day, until her son, Georgy (nicknamed Mur) was born in 1924, when the poems slow to a relative trickle.
"These particular poems were written in Prague between January 6, 1925 and January 22, 1925. In these four poems, her spirit struggles after a difficult final winter living in the small villages surrounding Prague in considerable poverty with her young daughter, infant son, and dependent-student-war-veteran husband. While living in and around Prague, the family was supported by Tsvetaeva's writing, small refugee pensions from the Czech government supplemented by direct gifts from Czech literary friends like Anna Teskova. By spring of 1925, Tsvetaeva moved on to Paris, where, in 1928, these poems were collected into her final published book of shorter lyrics, After Russia.
"Russian critic Simon Karlinsky, also her biographer, offers this judgment of her work of this period: "if we were to select the verse collection by Tsvetaeva in which her poetic craft reaches its highest peak, and her human and poetic stature its more awesome dimension and sweep, we would have to choose Posle Rossii [After Russia]."
"During this time of exile, and continuing on as she moved to Paris, Tsvetaeva was writing very frequently to Pasternak; for example, the 2nd and 3rd stanzas of "Into grey--my temples" were included in one of these letters to him.
"In 1939, Tsvetaeva and her son chose to follow her husband and daughter back to the Soviet Union. Her husband, Sergei Efron, was executed shortly afterward; her daughter, Ariadna (Alya), was also arrested and committed to a labor camp; her teen-aged son was unsettled and unhappy in the USSR, and later died as a soldier in World War II, all too shortly after Tsvetaeva hanged herself in 1941, in Elabuga, where she and her son had been evacuated to the safety of dire poverty. At the time of her death, she was 48.
I began translating Tsvetaeva in about 1978, upon the recommendation of Russian poet Joseph Brodsky:
"Well, if you are talking about the twentieth century, I'll give you a list of poets. Akhmatova, Mandelstam, Tsvetaeva (and she is the greatest one in my view. The greatest poet in the twentieth century was a woman." Joseph Brodsky, "Questions and Answers after Brodsy's Reading, 21 February 1978," Iowa Review 9(4): 4-5.
Translations and text by Mary Jane White, MFA, Iowa Writers' Workshop, NEA Fellow in Poetry and Translation.
* * *