Marina Tsvetaeva
Epitaph. 2. Useless with eyes like nails to...

2

Useless with eyes like nails to
penetrate the black soil.
As true as a nail in the mind
you are not here, not here.

It's useless turning my eyes
and fumbling round the whole sky.
Rain. Pails of rain-water. But
you are not there, not there.

Neither one of the two. Bone is
too much bone. And spirit is too much spirit.
Where is the real you? All of you?
Too much here. Too much there.

And I won’t exchange you for sand
and steam. You took me for kin,
and I won’t give you up for a corpse
and a ghost: a here, and a there.

It’s not you, not you, not you,
however much priests intone
that death and life are one:
God’s too much God, worm — too much worm!

You are one thing, corpse and spirit.
We won’t give you up for the smoke of
censers
or flowers
on graves

If you are anywhere, it’s here in
us: and we honour best all those who
have gone by despising division.
It is all of you that has gone.

Translated by Elaine Feinstein