Jesus Thoughts (30) : Rapture & Poetry

For my 30th entry in the Jesus Thoughts thread - thinking of 74 years ago, 12.27.1938, the date of Osip Mandelstam's death in a Vladivostok prison camp - I'm going to play a rerun here of an older post, titled Rapture & Poetry.

Speaking of which, here's my translation of one of Mandelstam's Octets :

I'll whisper it - in an outline.
Its hour has not yet come.
The chessgame of measureless heaven
is mated with sweat - and wisdom.

And under purgatory's transient sky
we grow absent-minded - forget
that lucky heaven-vault on high
- is a limber, everlasting habitat.

*

"& tomorrow... is only a promise."