Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva (October 8, 1892 – August 31, 1941) was a Russian and Soviet poet. Her work is considered among some of the greatest in twentieth century Russian literature.
Marina lived through and wrote of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Moscow famine that followed it. In an attempt to save her daughter Irina from starvation, she placed her in a state orphanage in 1919, where she died of hunger.
Tsvetaeva left Russia in 1922 and lived with her family in increasing poverty in Paris, Berlin and Prague before returning to Moscow in 1939. Her husband Sergei Efron and her daughter Ariadna Efron (Alya) were arrested on espionage charges in 1941; and her husband was executed. Tsvetaeva committed suicide in 1941. As a lyrical poet, her passion and daring linguistic experimentation mark her as a striking chronicler of her times and the depths of the human condition.
AN ATTEMPT AT JEALOUSY
Marina Tsvetaeva
How is your life with that other one?
Simpler, is it? A stroke of the oars
and a long coastline—
and the memory of me
is soon a drifting island
(not in the ocean—in the sky!)
Souls—you will be sisters—
sisters, not lovers.
How is your life with an ordinary
woman? without the god inside her?
The queen supplanted—
How do you breathe now?
Flinch, waking up?
What do you do, poor man?
“Hysterics and interruptions—
enough! I’ll rent my own house!”
How is your life with that other,
you, my own.
Is the breakfast delicious?
(If you get sick, don’t blame me!)
How is it, living with a postcard?
You who stood on Sinai.
How’s your life with a tourist
on Earth? Her rib (do you love her?)
is it to your liking?
How’s life? Do you cough?
Do you hum to drown out the mice in your mind?
How do you live with cheap goods: is the market rising?
How’s kissing plaster-dust?
Are you bored with her new body?
How’s it going, with an earthly woman,
with no sixth sense?
Are you happy?
No? In a shallow pit—how is your life,
my beloved? Hard as mine
with another man?
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TO KISS THE BROW
Marina Tsvetaeva
To kiss the brow – eases all anxiety.
I kiss the brow.
To kiss the eyes – cures insomnia’s misery.
I kiss the eyes.
To kiss the lips – one’s no longer thirsty.
I kiss the lips.
To kiss the brow – erases memory.
I kiss the brow.
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WHY SUCH TENDERNESS?
Marina Tsvetaeva
Why such tenderness?
Not the first – these curls
I stroke, I’ve known, yes,
Lips much darker than yours.
As stars fade and rise,
– Why such tenderness?
Eyes have risen
And faded to my eyes.
Yet with no such song
Have I heard night darker
Crowned – O tenderness –
In the breast of the singer.
Why such tenderness,
And what to do with it, singer
So young, simply passing by?
And could eyelashes – be longer?