Poem from Osip Mandelstam

The taunting form of your face

eluded my grasp in the cloud.

God, I called out by mistake—

I’d never called him aloud.

God’s name unfurled from my chest

like a bird from a cage and

soared through the thick, swirling mist.

Behind the bare cage I stand.

                  trans. Holly Woodward

Osip Mandelstam's poem

My mouth is frozen cold—

my skin is shivering,

but the sky dances gold,

commanding me to sing:

Weep, suffer love, know it,

and don’t drop the frail ball,

you tormented poet,

that I’ve lightly let fall.

So this is the real tie

to heaven’s secret realms,

in this heavy, dark sky—

the sadness overwhelms.

What if, above that shop,

this star shining so hard

were suddenly to drop

through my heart like a shard?

translated by Holly Woodward