#WITMonth - Two Poems

As I began this blog, I wanted to dedicate a day for sharing the poems that I loved. I decided it for Saturday. There is no special reason to choose Saturday other than an impulsive decision. It was a Saturday that I began this blog.

And this month (August) being the Women in Translation Month, I found it irresistible to share some poms written by women from across the globe.

I have already shared a poem of Wislawa Szymborska (Polish poet) in my blog as the Saturday poem. for this week.

Here are other two poems. One is by a Russian and the other is by a Polish.

I KNOW THE TRUTH by Marina Tsvetaeva 

I know the truth — give up all other truths!
No need for people anywhere on earth to struggle.
Look — it is evening, look, it is nearly night:
what do you speak of, poets, lovers, generals?

The wind is level now, the earth is wet with dew,
the storm of stars in the sky will turn to quiet.
And soon all of us will sleep under the earth, we
who never let each other sleep above it.

Translated from Russian by Elaine Feinstein.


MYSELF AND MY PERSON by Anna Swir

There are moments
when I feel more clearly than ever
that I am in the company
of my own person.
This comforts and reassures me,
this heartens me,
just as my tridimensional body
is heartened by my own authentic shadow.

There are moments
when I really feel more clearly than ever
that I am in the company
of my own person.

I stop
at a street corner to turn left
and I wonder what would happen
if my own person walked to the right.

Until now that has not happened
but it does not settle the question.

Translated from Polish by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan.

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In Praise of Feeling Bad about Yourself by Wislawa Szymborska

The buzzard never says it is to blame.
The panther wouldn't know what scruples mean.
When the piranha strikes, it feels no shame.
If snakes had hands, they'd claim their hands were clean.

A jackal doesn't understand remorse.
Lions and lice don't waver in their course.
Why should they, when they know they're right?

Though hearts of killer whales may weigh a ton,
in every other way they're light.

On this third planet of the sun
among the signs of bestiality
a clear conscience is Number One.


Translated from Polish by Stanislaw Baraczak and Clare Cavanagh 

OF THE MARRIAGE AT CANA by Rainer Maria Rilke.

Could she be anything but very proud

of him who made the plainest things become
lovely? And was not the high, large accustomed
night as though beside itself when he appeared?

Did not his having lost himself once, also
add unbelievably to his renown?
And did the wisest not change mouth into
ears, to hear him? Had not the house grown

new, at his voice? Ah, surely in those days
she had restrained herself a hundred times
from beaming forth with her delight in him.
And so she followed after him, amazed.

But there on that day at the wedding feast
when, unexpectedly, more wine was needed,
she looked, and begged a gesture at the least
and did not understand when he protested.

Then he did it. And she saw much later
how she had thrust him then upon his way.
Now he'd become a real miracle-maker,
and in this act unalterably there lay

the sacrifice. Yes, written and decreed.
Then on that day, was it prepared already?
She; it was she had driven on the deed
in the blindness of her vanity.

At table, heaped with vegetables and fruits,
she shared the joy, and never understood
that the water from her own tear-ducts,
with this wine, had been transformed to blood.

Translated from German by Stephen Spender

Taken from the Book: The Life of the Virgin Mary [Das Marien-Laben] by Rainer Maria Rilke, Vision Press Limited.