Sunday Akhmatova Blogging

Here's what I think is a rather good translation of an Akhmatova poem that I found noodling around on the web. Good in the sense that the poem actually seems to scan almost effortlessly and speaks to me -- I can't say if it's good in the sense of accurately conveying what Akhmatova was trying to say. Unfortunately, I can't remember who did this translation.

Akhmatova's relationship to dirt is different than mine. Me, I love dirt, think about it, respect it, create compost for it, love to dig in it and bury bulbs, seeds, spellworkings in it. Do you ever think about dirt?

THIS RUSSIAN SOIL

In all the world no people are so tearless,
So proud, so simple as are we.
1922

In lockets for a charm we do not wear it,
In verse about its sorrows do not weep,
With Eden's blissful vales do not compare it,
Untroubled does it leave our bitter sleep.
To traffic in it is a thought that never,
Not even in our hearts, remote, takes root.
Before our eyes its image does not hover,
Though we be beggared, sick, despairing, mute.
It's the mud on our shoes, it is rubble,
It's the sand on our teeth, it is slush,
It's the pure, taintless dust that we crumble,
That we pound, that we mix, that we crush.
But it's ours, our own, and will open one day
To receive and embrace us and turn us to clay.

1961