A moon gate in my wall: собрание стихотворений

Black, like the pupil of an eye, like the pupil, sucking
light — I love you, vigilant night.

Give me voice to sing of you, oh original mother

of songs, holding the reins of four winds in your palm.

Calling you, glorifying you, I am only

a sea-shell, where the sound of the ocean has not yet been stilled.
Night! I've already looked long enough into the pupils
of man! Now reduce me to ashes, oh black sun, — night!

[1960s]

654. Марина Цветаева (1892–1941). «Знаю, умру на заре! На которой из двух…»

I know I will die at dawn, or at sunset — which of the two,
at which of the two — this cannot be foreordained!
Oh, if it only could be that my torch would be dimmed
both at sunset and sunrise, together, at once!
Dancing I walked over Earth! — the sky's own daughter!
Full of roses, my apron! Never a broken twig!
I will die at sunset or dawn! God won't send
the night hawk for my soul — the soul of a swan!

Moving the unkissed crucifix gently aside with my hand,

I will rush toward the generous sky for the ultimate greeting.
A slit of the dawn — and a slit of my smile in reply…
… In the hiccough of death, a poet still, — I!

[1960s]

655. Марина Цветаева (1892–1941). «На кортике своем: Марина…»

On your dirk you etched «Marina»
when rising for the strife.
I was the first and only one
in all your splendid life.

I see the army boxcar hell,

that night, your radiant face…
Your curl I scattered to the winds,
your patch I laid in a secret place…

[1960s]

656. Марина Цветаева (1892–1941). «Кто уцелел — умрет, кто мертв — воспрянет…»

Не who survived will die, who died — will rise,
and when recalling olden days, a son
will ask «Where were you?» — like a roll of thunder,
so will answer thunder, «On the Don».
«What did you do?» — «We merely suffered tortures,
then we grew weary and lay down to sleep».
And pensively the sons, opposite «Duty»
will enter «Don» into the book they keep.

[1960s]

657. Марина Цветаева (1892–1941). «Идет по луговинам лития…»

Above the meadows rings a requiem mass.
The secret book of Russia's Genesis
where all Earth's fates are hidden has been read
right to its end and has been tightly closed.

And round and round the steppe winds rove and scour

«Russia! Oh martyr! Rest in peace!»

[1960s]

658. Марина Цветаева (1892–1941). «Если душа родилась крылатой…»

If a soul is born with wings —
what does it care about earthly things!
About Genghis-khan and about his Horde!
I've but two enemies in this world,
twins who have ever together stood:
the hungry ones' hunger, the fed ones' food.

[1960s]