Black Candle Black Candle
Your girlish shoulders are for blushing, For blushing under whips, and in dawn’s raw ice to shine. Your child-like hands are for pushing, For pushing flatirons and feed sacks, and knotting twine. Your feet, infant-tender, are for tiptoeing, Tiptoeing through shattered glass, in the blood-tracked clay. And I, I am for you, a black candle burning, Like a black candle I am burning, and dare not pray. (translated from the Russian by Christian Wiman)
Jan 4, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Osip Mandelstam
Prison Poem: “You stripped away the sea… #11” Prison Poem: “You stripped away the sea… #11”
After stripping me of the seas, a scattering & running start, And giving me instead a foothold of violent earth, What'd it get you? A brilliant retribution: You couldn't seize these lips still stirring. (Translated from the Russian by John High)
Oct 8, 2008 / Books & the Arts / Osip Mandelstam