Arseny Tarkovsky
How It Was

Nowhere anything for eating,
all of Russia fading, freezing,
selling gramophones and blankets,
hats and chairs and anything
in exchange for wheat and millet
in the year nineteen-nineteen.

Elder brother killed already,
and my dad already blind,
all our furniture long bartered,
home was like an empty tomb,
yet we lived, we still had water,
bread we baked from angry nettles.

Mama was all hunched and aged,
all grey-haired though only forty,
nothing but a beggar’s rags
clinging to her skinny body.
When she slept, I kept on checking:
was she breathing, was she not?

Guests were few and far between
in the year nineteen-nineteen.
Sick at heart, our poor old neighbours,
just like little birds in cages,
tiny birds on whithered perches,
lived like we did, lived in hell.

Then one of these poor old neighbours
bought a gift — rotten potato.
«Think what riches», she began.
«once belonged even to beggars!
See how Russia’s being chastised
for Rasputin and his doings!»
Evening came. ‘Eat!’ said Mama,
holding out a splendid flatbread.
And the Muse dressed all in rose,
came to me all of a sudden,
hoping she could make me sleepless,
hoping I’d be hers for ever.
So I wrote my primal poem,
sang how Mama on a Sunday
baked a flatbread from potato.
So I had my first encounter
with poetic inspiration
in the year nineteen-nineteen

Translated by Robert Chandler