She has not yet been born:
she is music and word,
and therefore the untorn,
fabric of what is stirred.
Silent the ocean breathes.
Madly day’s glitter roams.
Spray of pale lilac foams,
in a bowl of grey-blue leaves.
May my lips rehearse
the primordial silence,
like a note of crystal clearness,
sounding, pure from birth!
Stay as foam Aphrodite – Art –
and return, Word, where music begins:
and, fused with life’s origins,
be ashamed heart, of heart!
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Comments1Just read this deep and soul-stirring work by Osip Mandelstam. It really hits you right in the feels, I tell ya. Something about the part where it says, "May my lips rehearse the primordial silence, like a note of crystal clearness, sounding, pure from birth!" That just resonates with me a lot. You can feel the emotion in it. Man, Mandelstam sure has a way with words. His saying about the heart being ashamed of the heart was also quite stunning. I ain't no poetry expert or anything, but this sure is specail.