"The science of departing I have studied" - Osip Mandelshtam

The science of creation I have studied
By my own likeness and my own soul -
And sipping universe, in it delighted
That is but only under His control.
With arms - like wings - stretched out, on day the seventh,
I soared above the progeny of mine;
In moment of lucidity or madness,
I crafted me inside of space and time.
With like and understanding they perceived me
And did not think me foreign or a freak.
With interest and love they did receive me,
That was my world - the home I long did seek.
Paintings I made for walls of this my home
From colors blended and made to delight.
I splashed the motifs also through the corners:
The music and the poems, intertwined.
And having filled with books the space around me,
Like God, harbor of Being having made,
On seventh day, at darkness of the twilight,
I keep just ONE - the heartache and the pain.
No one with me will glory in the color,
And none, lips smacking, sound with me will bite,
Or will divide the thoughts' birth pangs and horror,
Or, readying wings, soar with me into height.
The science of creation I have studied,
Each day became more clever and more sweet -
"The science of departing I have studied"
With universe, that HE did once create.

By Luba Solokovsky
Translated from Russian by Ilya Shambat