The Great Marina

I've just completed another Reading & Writing Poetry course
in the College of Creative Studies at UCSB.

One of the most gifted students in the class, Kate Rogalsky,
added two translations from Tsvetaeva to her own work in
her final-project chapbook.

With her permission I want to display one of these renderings.
So, with thanks to the devoted hands of Ekaterina / Katia /
Kate / Kat, this untitled lyric from the great Marina:


I do not think, or argue, or complain.
Or sleep.
I long for neither sun, nor moon, nor sea.
Nor ship.

I do not feel the heat amidst these walls,
Nor garden’s green,
Nor do I long for a desired gift,
Foreseen.

Neither the morning gladdens nor the trolley’s
Ring-singing run.
I live, forgetting date and age
And daylight sun.

I am – a dancer on a tightrope slashed
And hewn.
I am – a shadow’s shadow: lunatic
Of two dark moons.

~M. Tsvetaeva, 1913, Translated from the Russian