Marina Tsvetaeva
Homesickness

Homesickness! That long
Exposure to misery!
It’s all the same to me –
Where I’m utterly lonely

Or what stones I wander
Home by, with my sacks,
Home that’s no more mine
Than a hospital, a barracks.

It’s all the same to me, what
Faces I bristle among, a lion
Captive, what human crowd
– as it must do – thrusts me on,

Into myself, individual feeling,
From the pole, a Kamchatka bear;
Where I fail to fit (and won’t try!),
Where I’m debased: I don’t care.

I won’t let the milky call
Of my native language tempt me.
It’s all the same to me in what
Tongue they misunderstand me!

(By what readers swallowing
Newsprint tonnage, gossip’s grime…)
They belong to the twentieth century
While I’m – before my time,

Petrified, like a log left
From an avenue, let fall.
They’re all the same – it’s all
The same – perhaps most of all –

What was native to me – of all.
All the signs and tokens, there,
All the dates – a hand erased:
The soul once born – somewhere.

My land cares so little for me
That even the keenest sleuth
Could traverse my whole – spirit!
And find no birthmark, in truth!

Houses alien, churches empty,
All – one and the same – to me:
Yet if by the side of the road
A particular bush shows – rowanberry… 

Translated by A. S. Kline