Marina Tsvetaeva
All repeat the first line...

To A. Tarkovsky

I laid the table for six...^*

All repeat the first line
And all the well-worn refrain:
— "I laid the table for six" ...
You fave forgotten one - the seventh.

Six of us excited.
Their faces - sparkling ...
How could you for such a table
Forget seven — the seventh ...

Enjoy your guests,
Idle is the crystal decanter.
Sadly — they are disappointed — much,
No one in particular — all are sad.

No cheer and no glow,
Ach! They don't eat and drink.
— How could you forget their number?
How could you make a mistake in the order?

How could, how dare you not to believe,
That there were six (two brothers, a third -
Yourself — with your wife, father and mother)
There are seven of them — I too am on earth!

You laid a table for six,
But the sixth is not dead.
A scarecrow among the living —
I want to be a ghost — with you

(Them)...
Shy as a thief,
O — no soul, no touching! —
As the undelivered object
I sit down uninvited, the seventh.

Next! — A knocked over glass!
And all. What wanted to spill —
All the salt from my eyes, all the blood from my
wounds — On the table cloth — on the boards.

And — no coffin! Disppear — no!
A disenchanted table, the house awakened.
Like death - at a wedding dinner
I am — alive, and came to dinner.

...No one: not a brother. Not a son, no husband,
Not anybody — and still the same reproach:
— You, the table is laid for six — an embarrassment,
I stand rooted – at its edge.

___
* First line from a poem by A. Tarkovsky

Translated by Rolf W. F. Gross