Marina Tsvetaeva
Epitaph. 4. The blow muffled through years of...

4

The blow muffled through years of
forgetting, of not knowing:
That blow reaches me now like the song of a
woman, or like horses neighing.

Through an inert building, a song of passion and
the blow comes:
dulled by forgetfulness, by not knowing which is
a soundless thicket.

It is the sin of memory, which has no eyes or
lips or flesh or nose,
the silt of all the days and nights
we have been without each other

the blow is muffled with moss and waterweed:
so ivy devours the
core of the living thing it is ruining
— a knife through a feather bed.

Window wadding, our ears are plugged with it
and with that other wool
outside windows of snow and the weight of spiritless
years: and the blow is muffled.

Translated by Elaine Feinstein