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104: Tristia, Osip Madelstam
I have studied the science of good-byes,
the bare-headed laments of night.
The waiting lengthens as the oxen chew.
In the town the last hour of the watch.
And I have bowed to the knell of night in the rooster’s throat
when eyes red with crying picked up their burden
of sorrow and looked into the distance
and the crying of women and the Muses’ song became one.Who can tell from the sound of the word ‘parting’
what kind of bereavements await us,
what the rooster promises with his loud surprise
when a light shows in the Acropolis,
dawn of a new life,
the ox still swinging his jaw in the outer passage,
or why the rooster, announcing the new life,
flaps his wings on the ramparts?A thing I love is the action of spinning:
the shuttle fluttering back and forth, the hum of the spindle,
and look, like a swan’s down floating toward us,
Delia, the barefoot shepherdess, flying—
o indigence at the root of our lives,
how poor is the language of happiness!
Everything’s happened before and will happen again,
but still the moment of each meeting is sweet.Amen. The little transparent figure
lies on the clean earthen plate
like a squirrel skin being stretched.
A girl bends to study the wax.
Who are we to guess at the hell of the Greeks?
Wax for women, bronze for men:
our lot falls to us in the field, fighting,
but to them death comes as they tell fortunes.-
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love notes
these are things that I could not tell you;
things that remind me of you when I want nothing more than to forget;
things that have gone wrong;
things that have gone right;
things that will never happen;
things that are your fault,
my fault,
the faults of no one;
these are things that we did not do and will not let go of
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