Deutsch and Yarmolinsky, comps. Modern Russian Poetry. 1921.
Not by Hands CreatedPiotr Oreshin
Drop
Mug-forward into the swamps.
With your old were-wolf’s eye,
Cataract-blinded,
Look
What a blade I am!
Big-browed dawns,
And the darkness of forests,
Rye,
And the sheaves behind the village,—
My body.
Tufted with red hair,
Wag
Like asses’ ears
Through the heavens!
Convulsed eyes—
Two
Oceans resting in me,
And thick
Bulbous lashes
Burning green
On my cheek-bones.
Is stretched with song
From east to west.
And hoofs
Kicked skyward
And
The claw
On my hairy paw
Blazes.
And motionless,
Like a bull,
I have squatted, rock-fast,
In a long shirt
Of sunsets,
And I sit now
Sprawled out
On the fat hill of the universe.
Grow
On my hairy belly,
And in the stony fir-trees
Gray wolves,
In cope and coif,
Having lit a taper,
Serve
The mass.
Not by hands created,
I roll my eyes heavily
As roll the mill-stones
Of the blue
Mills
Of heaven.
I chew the cud of gray clouds,
And
Think
Of perishing brothers
With my wise
Cheerful belly.
I see
Between my legs new rivers
Heave
New ground
Upon golden
Crests.
I spit
With out-thrust, lower lip,
And lo!
Rains
Pour with the sound of spears
And, clinking,
Pierce the earth.
Not by hands created,
With the spirit of Life-giving Spring
I sweep
The tilled field,
And
On the naked knees of the universe
I pour
The blue waters
Of My Eternal Triumph.
Hosannah in the highest!