This beautiful last published poem in the Voronezh Notebooks of Mandelstam seems to capture (better than I ever could) the feeling I tried to describe in previous post. I recommend these translations by the McKanes (publ. by Bloodaxe), despite the awkwardness. The notes included are very thorough, carefully done. In this poem OM sort of turns the Orpheus-quality inside out. (Natasha Shtempel (handicapped, with a pronounced limp) was a music teacher living in Voronezh, very kind to the Mandelstams. She wrote a memoir of their friendship.

I love this poem.

 
22. To Natasha Shtempel

 
1.

 
Limping against her will over the deserted earth,
with uneven, sweet steps,
she walks just ahead
of her swift friend and her fiance.
The restraining freedom
of her inspiring disability pulls her along,
but it seems that her walking is held back
by the clarity of a concept :
that this spring weather
is the ancestral mother of the grave's vault,
and that this is an eternal beginning.

 
2.

 
There are women, who are so close to the moist earth,
their every step is a loud mourning,
their calling is to accompany the resurrected,
and be first to greet the dead.
It is a crime to demand kisses from them,
and it is impossible to part from them.
Today angels, tomorrow worms in the graveyard,
and the day after, just an outline.
The steps you once took, you won't be able to take.
Flowers are immortal.  Heaven is integral.
What will be is only a promise.

                            
                                   5.4.1937