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“As people listen intently …” by Marina Tsvetaeva 🇷🇺 (8 Oct 1892 – 31 Aug 1941)
Translated from the Russian by Elaine Feinstein
As people listen intently
(a river’s mouth to its source)
that’s how they smell a flower
to the depths, till they lose all sense.
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That’s how they feel their deepest
craving in dark air,
as children lying in blue sheets
peer into memory.
​
And that’s how a young boy feels
when his blood begins to change.
When people fall in love with love
they fling themselves in the abyss.