Marina Tsvetaeva
The Crevasse

How this matter came to an end
Neither love nor friendship can say.
With every passing day you reply less directly,
With every passing day you disappear more deeply.

Until, you’re undisturbed by anything now,
— Only the tree riffles its branches —
As if you’ve fallen into an icy crevasse —
Into my breast, that hurt itself so over you!

From the treasure house of images
Here you are — at random — my guesswork:
As if in a cut-glass coffin, in me, you
Sleep, — in me, as if in some deep wound.

You sleep, — this icy aperture is narrow!
The ices, jealous of their corpses:
Ring — armor — seal — and girdle...
With no return and no password.

Widows, why bother to curse Helen!
Isn’t Helen’s lovely Troy
Burning! To the crevasse’s icy, deep
Blue bottom, you sink to your rest...

Having taken you in, as Aetna
Did Empedocles... Fall asleep, dreamer!
And tell your people, it avails them nothing:
My breast does not give up its dead.

Translated by Mary Jane White