Photo by Bob Dreizler, Sacramento
SILENTIUM
—Fyodor Tyutchev (1803-1873)
Be silent, hide yourself:
In the still spirit
Hoard those hauntings
And let their coming
Be like the speechlessness of stars
By night-time waking, rising, homing.
What temerity may sound
Another's depth, survey its ground?
Utter your thoughts
They flow in lies. Dig down
You cloud the spring that feeds the silences.
Learn to live in yourself. There
Thought on thought,
Fretful of glare and stir,
Begets its untold transmutations
And their song
Only in silence may you hear.
(translated from the Russian by Charles Tomlinson)
___________________
—Medusa
SILENTIUM
—Fyodor Tyutchev (1803-1873)
Be silent, hide yourself:
In the still spirit
Hoard those hauntings
And let their coming
Be like the speechlessness of stars
By night-time waking, rising, homing.
What temerity may sound
Another's depth, survey its ground?
Utter your thoughts
They flow in lies. Dig down
You cloud the spring that feeds the silences.
Learn to live in yourself. There
Thought on thought,
Fretful of glare and stir,
Begets its untold transmutations
And their song
Only in silence may you hear.
(translated from the Russian by Charles Tomlinson)
___________________
—Medusa