The light cross of lonely strolls
O. Mandelstam
I write poems, what’s more in Russian
and I don’t want any other workload,
I don’t want any other job.
Honestly I don’t want to shoulder
any other enterprise.
The time of the year involves me,
the moment of risk, the hour of the soul.
I sharpen my pencils with them.
Pencils. Not knife or teeth.
The silver trumpets sing
in the frail neighboring forest
where I will carry my usual cross
of lyric-making strolls.
Each backstreet is full
of the torment of the soul and yearning
for feminine and masculine rhymes.
Translated by Richard McKane