The Death of Osip Mandelstam

if he died a peaceful natural death

with painless pure mystery

leaving people not to protest in grief

but to linger in the splendor of his poetry

if the assassins were not a step faster

in whichever clever ways

to strip him off his golden singing voice

then the writing hand of this poem would not tremble

no! his death was declared in a haste

in rehashed words

which still casts shadows after half a century

and attests (as Joseph Brodsky said)

to the Laws of Gravity—a black hole

where all humanity is sucked

and a person disappears under the sun

this is yet not difficult, with time and space

with a system operated by a giant

even steel ribs would bend

let us remember the evil age

on a planet where poets dwell, the hornet nest

of a clamorous age already roils

fists of a tyrant rub out cinders

everywhere, a new escape begins anew

yet here was Vladivostok on the horizon

in a concentration camp near Kolyma

people shut the door leaving him on the bed

as everything was leaving him

even pain would soon renounce him

sorrow no longer groped his left ventricle

a fugitive, on the edge of an empire

alone to bear a most bizarre destiny

hands stretched out to touch the imaginary land

unwillingly with mixed feelings

a man without even a handful of dirt in life

would in death

be welcomed by the earth

what to regret? death is no longer a surprise

dear assassins, now shall you become so amicable!

higher up, his constellation watches everything from above

and blows the last flame into his body

to warm his soul that is numb from the cold

even with one last breath his entire being

still sings the vast burning night sky

like before, like a swallow

that sings in the acceleration of flight

the night sky of a winter day in 1938

obscure like the night of Final Judgment

pale light, imperishable light

dripped onto a Moscow window

inside, a lady was already asleep

the tears on her cheeks had not dried

on the table, an unsent letter filled

with small scribbles of despairing love

“It’s me, Nadja. Where are you? So long!”