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!