Marina Tsvetaeva
To Sergei Efron-Durnovo. 2. Like seaweed, like branches of willows...

2

Like seaweed, like branches of willows
Of Malmazonia are your limbs,
Thus you did lie in sprays of sea foam
And absent-mindedly transfixed

Upon the sweet light-golden melons
Of diamond and aquamarine
The eyes forever semi-open
So blue-and-grayish, bluish-green.

The waves are just like rabid lions,
The arrows of the sun did fly.
And from intolerable blueness
Too whitish, you did there lie.

Behind the back, the desert, somewhere
The station Djankoi had to be,
And underneath your arm stretched out
Melon grew golden quietly.

Thus, calm and precious, you lie there,
Don't give a glance and do not see,
But look — and waves will heave with power,
And mountains will be moved to sea.

And new moons will in sky be burning,
And joyful lions will lie down
Under the single downward leaning
Of your head beautiful and young.

Translated by Ilya Shambat