Marina Tsvetaeva: The Essential Poetry

You can love shadows, but can you live with shadows

At the age of eighteen on the earth?

For my poems, written so early,
When I didn’t even know I was — a poet,

To want — that is the business of bodies,

But from this day on for one another

We are souls

I don’t remember you separately

From love.

Love is a bond, not an investigation.

2

Not Parnassus, not the Sinai,

Just a bare barracks

Hill, — Line up! Fire! —

Why then for my eyes

(Since it’s October now, not May)

Was that mountain Paradise?

Youth is — for loving,

Old age — for keeping warm

GRAY HAIR

These are ashes of treasures:

Of losses, affronts.

These are ashes before which

Granite turns — to dust.

This grayness is the victory

Of immortal powers.

Lips — close to yours in the fog...

“God, judge me not!” You’ve never been

A woman on this earth!