Marina Tsvetaeva
They stand in the laborer’s shadow...

About Factories

1

They stand in the laborer’s shadow
As smoke-blackened blocks.
The curls of a moving heaven
Toss now above their soot.

Into the lonely vapor of a tea-room
A greasy peaked-cap shuffles.
These outskirts’ last smokestack,
A final trumpet, clamors for justice.

Smokestack! Trumpet! From knit brows
A last blast: we are still here!
What death-sentence is this
Last complaint, this final trumpet!

How deeply into your velvet satiety
Their pitiful sounds sink their teeth!
With what buried-aliveness
And dragging-out to slaughter!

And God? — Up to his neck in smoke,
Won’t intercede! We wait in vain!
On him—above beds in hospitals
And prisons, he is tacked up.

In mutilation! Of the living flesh!
As it was and as it will be — to
The end.
                — All the singing of the rails,
Where every despair comes to roost:

Factory! Factory! Because it’s called
A factory, this black flock lifting.
Get used to the despair of factory
Smokestacks, trumpets — because

The factory calls. And no intercessor
Will come for you then,
When over the last city
The last smokestack, a final trumpet, begins to roar.

Translated by Mary Jane White