Marina Tsvetaeva - Stairways

(From)

We with skills, we with mills,
What have we done to Eden ?
The first knife, the first pry,
What have we done to a Season?

A Thing – like a woman - believed us!
Seems like trees were not enough,
And iron had to be beaten –
We needed nails and stuff!

Chips! Convenient things!
What have we done, starting this?
The planet,  where all speak of Grace -
Turned into a messy waste ?..

The Glory was once river-run,
The Glory was once cliff-wrought.
Into the World – a soulful  thing -
What has Man brought ? 

A Tree, trustful to a sound 
Of an insolent axe and tedious saw,
Stretched an apple-hand.
Man – axed.

Mountains, displaying ore
Secretly (called “metal” later),
Firmly  attested: “ A wonder !”
Man – blasted.

Educated by this mode
Things answered with a row -
Table stated: I’m a bole.
Broken chair:  a bough.

In your lacquered cages, a noise
You think  come from ancestors ?
No, it’s a Walnut, stretching 
To the stars.

You wake - as from a salvo !
A wardrobe cracked? No, things
Revenge. Domestics have a ball !
Gas burst?  No, Devil winks !..

...

YOUR SLAVERIES AND YOUR SUPREMACIES –
LOOK, LOOK HOW THEY SHRINK !


1926
vip/27.09.2013


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Марина Цветаева - из поэмы "Лестницы" (1926)