Marina Tsvetaeva
Poets. 1. Poet — from afar starts a speech...

1

Poet — from afar starts a speech.
A poet - far away starts the speech.

With planets, with marks, with roundabout
Tales' hollows... between yes and nay
He even having swung from the belltower
Took out the hook... For comets' way

Is poets' way. The scattered chime of purpose —
That's his connection! Forehead up — despair!
You know that the eclipses of the poets
Are not foretold by the calendar.

He's he, who mixes cards together,
Who is deceiving count and weight,
He's he, who asks from the desktop,
Who beats with Kant over the head,

Who is like tree in its own beauty
In the stone coffin of Bastille.
He, on whose train all are late,
Whose traces have been chilled
Always... For comets' way

Is poets' way: burning and not warming.
Tearing, not growing — to break up and tear —
Your season, o the mantled curved one,
Is not foretold by a calendar!

Translated by Ilya Shambat