{ you know what I mean. }

{ Anna Akhmatova: Rachel. }

Rachel
by Anna Akhmatova

And Jacob met Rachel in the valley,
He bowed to her, like a homeless wanderer.
The flocks churned up hot dust,
The spring was blocked by a huge stone.
He removed the stone with his own hand
And gave the sheep pure water to drink.

But the heart in his breast began to grieve,
To ache, like an open wound,
And he agreed to labour for the maiden
Seven years as a shepherd to Laban.
Rachel! For him who was under your sway,
Seven years were like seven dazzling days.

But very wise was Laban, the lover of silver,
And pity was unknown to him.
He thought: Everyone will forgive deceit
For the glory of Laban's house.
And with a firm hand he led unsuspecting Leah
To Jacob's marriage bed.

Deep night flows over the desert,
Lets fall cool dew,
And Laban's younger daughter moans,
Tearing her heavy braids.
She curses her sister and blasphemes against God
And commands the angel of death to appear.

And the sweetest time for Jacob was his dream:
The limpid spring of the valley,
The joyful gaze of Rachel's eyes
And her voice like a dove:
Jacob, wasn't it you who kissed me
And called me your black dove?

{ Anna Akhmatova: In Memory of M. B. }

In Memory of M. B.
by Anna Akhmatova

Here is my gift, not roses on your grave,
not sticks of burning incense.
You lived aloof, maintaining to the end
your magnificent disdain.
You drank wine, and told the wittiest jokes,
and suffocated inside stifling walls.
Alone you let the terrible stranger in,
and stayed with her alone.

Now you're gone, and nobody says a word
about your troubled and exalted life.
Only my voice, like a flute, will mourn
at your dumb funeral feast.
Oh, who would have dared believe that half-crazed I,
I, sick with grief for the buried past,
I, smoldering on a slow fire,
having lost everything and forgotten all,
would be fated to commemorate a man
so full of strength and will and bright inventions,
who only yesterday it seems, chatted with me,
hiding the tremor of his mortal pain.