Tuesday, June 2, 2015

from "Poem of the End"

Last       bridge       I won't give up or take out my hand this is the last bridge the last bridging between
water       and firm land: and I am saving these coins for death for Charon, the price of Lethe
this       shadow-money from my dark hand I press soundlessly into the shadowy darkness of his
shadow money it is no gleam and tinkle in it coins for shadows: the dead have enough poppies
This bridge
Lovers for the most part are without hope: passion also is just a bridge, a means of connection
It's warm       to nestle close at your ribs, to move in a visionary pause towards nothing, beside nothing
no       arms, no       legs now, only the bone of my side is alive where it presses directly against you
life in that side only, ear and echo is it: there I stick like white to egg yolk, or an eskimo to his fur
adhesive, pressing joined to you: Siamese twins are no nearer. The woman you call mother
when she forgot all things in motionless triumph only to carry you: she did not hold you closer.
Understand: we have grown into one as we slept and now I can't jump because I can't let go your hand
and I won't be torn off as I press close to you: this bridge is no husband but a lover: a just slipping past
our support: for the river is fed with bodies! I bite in like a tick you must tear out my roots to be rid of me
like ivy       like a tick inhuman       godless to throw me away like a thing, when there is
no thing I ever prized in this empty world of things. Say this is only a dream, night still and afterwards morning
an express       to Rome? Granada? I won't know myself as I push off the Himalayas of bedclothes.
But this dark is deep: now I warm you with my blood, listen to this flesh. It is far truer than poems.
If you are warm, who will you go to tomorrow for that? This is delirium, please say this bridge cannot
end       as it ends
- Here then? His gesture could be made by a child or a god. - And so? - I am biting in! For a little more time. The last of it.
- Marina Tsvetaeva, tr. Elaine Feinstein