Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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

Not by Hands Created

Piotr Oreshin

FALL on your face,

Drop

Mug-forward into the swamps.

With your old were-wolf’s eye,

Cataract-blinded,

Look

What a blade I am!

Carrot-haired

Big-browed dawns,

And the darkness of forests,

Rye,

And the sheaves behind the village,—

My body.

Long ears,

Tufted with red hair,

Wag

Like asses’ ears

Through the heavens!

Two

Convulsed eyes—

Two

Oceans resting in me,

And thick

Bulbous lashes

Burning green

On my cheek-bones.

My stone mouth

Is stretched with song

From east to west.

Legs

And hoofs

Kicked skyward

And

The claw

On my hairy paw

Blazes.

Gorged

And motionless,

Like a bull,

I have squatted, rock-fast,

In a long shirt

Of sunsets,

And I sit now

Sprawled out

On the fat hill of the universe.

Dark forests

Grow

On my hairy belly,

And in the stony fir-trees

Gray wolves,

In cope and coif,

Having lit a taper,

Serve

The mass.

Eternal,

Not by hands created,

I roll my eyes heavily

As roll the mill-stones

Of the blue

Mills

Of heaven.

Slowly

I chew the cud of gray clouds,

And

Think

Of perishing brothers

With my wise

Cheerful belly.

Through closed lids

I see

Between my legs new rivers

Heave

New ground

Upon golden

Crests.

Listening to the earth,

I spit

With out-thrust, lower lip,

And lo!

Rains

Pour with the sound of spears

And, clinking,

Pierce the earth.

Eternal,

Not by hands created,

With the spirit of Life-giving Spring

I sweep

The tilled field,

And

On the naked knees of the universe

I pour

The blue waters

Of My Eternal Triumph.

Hosannah in the highest!