Marina Tsvetaeva
- From where is this tenderness coming?.., by Maya Jouravel
- Where does such tenderness come from..., by Andrey Kneller
- Where does this tenderness come from?.., by Elaine Feinstein
«I happened upon a devillet / with the body of a child. / Thin and scrawny like a gnat; / his face was sharp, and shy, and old. His body trembled in the rain; / his fur was dark and ruffled. / It was a sorry sight; I feared / this devillet might snuff it. “Love! Love!” I hear all ro...»
«In your long jackets, broad-brimmed hats, / with notebooks of your poems, / you disintegrated long ago in dust / like fallen lilac blossom. Yours is a country free of ready forms, / where all is mingled, fractured, dislocated, / where there’s no sky — only a grave mound — / and th...»
«They’ve cut a hole in the deep / dense blue of the ice: / a breathing space for big fish and little, / water for bringers of buckets, / a way out for a weary traveler / if she and life turn out after all / to be traveling different roads / and she has nowhere to go.»
«I pardon all your sins — / but two I can’t abide: / You read poems in silence / and kiss aloud. So sin, blossom, be merry — / but take my advice: / a kiss, my darling, is not for the ear, / and music is not for the eyes.»