God (3)

by Marina Tsvetaeva

English version by Paul Graves
Original Language Russian

No, you never will bind him
To your signs and your burdens!
The least chink -- he's inside it,
Like the supplest of gymnasts.

By the drawbridges
And flocks in migration,
By the telegraph poles,
God's escaping us.

No, you never will train him
To abide and to share!
He, in feelings' resident slush,
Is a gray floe of ice.

No, you never will catch him!
On a thrifty dish, God
Never thrives in the window
Like domestic begonias!

All, beneath the roof's vault,
We're awaiting the builder,
The call. Poets and pilots
-- All gave up in despair.

He's the sprint -- and he's moving.
The whole volume of stars
Is, from Alpha to Omega,
Just a trace of his cloak.

-- from Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women, Edited by Jane Hirshfield

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God (3)