Piotr Oreshin. Not by Hands Created. Deutsch and Yarmolinsky, comps. 1921. Modern Russian Poetry

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Deutsch and Yarmolinsky, comps. Modern Russian Poetry. 1921.

Not by Hands Created

By Piotr Oreshin


1 FALL on your face,
Drop
Mug-forward into the swamps.
With your old were-wolf’s eye,
Cataract-blinded,	5
Look
What a blade I am!

2 Carrot-haired
Big-browed dawns,
And the darkness of forests,	10
Rye,
And the sheaves behind the village,—
My body.

3 Long ears,
Tufted with red hair,	15
Wag
Like asses’ ears
Through the heavens!

4 Two
Convulsed eyes—	20
Two
Oceans resting in me,
And thick
Bulbous lashes
Burning green	25
On my cheek-bones.

5 My stone mouth
Is stretched with song
From east to west.

6 Legs	30
And hoofs
Kicked skyward
And
The claw
On my hairy paw	35
Blazes.

7 Gorged
And motionless,
Like a bull,
I have squatted, rock-fast,	40
In a long shirt
Of sunsets,
And I sit now
Sprawled out
On the fat hill of the universe.	45

8 Dark forests
Grow
On my hairy belly,
And in the stony fir-trees
Gray wolves,	50
In cope and coif,
Having lit a taper,
Serve
The mass.

9 Eternal,	55
Not by hands created,
I roll my eyes heavily
As roll the mill-stones
Of the blue
Mills	60
Of heaven.

10 Slowly
I chew the cud of gray clouds,
And
Think	65
Of perishing brothers
With my wise
Cheerful belly.

11 Through closed lids
I see	70
Between my legs new rivers
Heave
New ground
Upon golden
Crests.	75

12 Listening to the earth,
I spit
With out-thrust, lower lip,
And lo!
Rains	80
Pour with the sound of spears
And, clinking,
Pierce the earth.

13 Eternal,
Not by hands created,	85
With the spirit of Life-giving Spring
I sweep
The tilled field,
And
On the naked knees of the universe	90
I pour
The blue waters
Of My Eternal Triumph.
Hosannah in the highest!