By Marina Tsvetaeva
(February 8th, 1923)
Here, in-between you: all your maisons, mists, moneys,
All your madams and musings,
Not cliquing in love with you,
And with you not fusing,
Anonymously, Schumann-style, under coat-robes
Bringing a springtime through -
Out of sight! Higher yet!
By a nightingale tremolo self-suspended -
There moves a certain - chosen one.
And the one who’s most fearful - first giving stick,
Then licking toes off!
Gets so lost in-between
The massives and the hernias,
This deity in a brothel.
Superfluous! Sublimest! Originant! The challenge! To go skywards
Who’s not deconditioned… Who all scaffolds
Refuses and denies patience…
In your visas’ and currencies’ rags half-torn,
Keep on going, expatriate, onwards, run!