Marina Tsvetaeva. I set the table for six...

“I set the table for six ...”

I keep changing the first line
And keep changing one word:
"I set the table for six . .."
You forgot one—the seventh.

It is not merry for us six.
On faces are the streams of rain...
How could you over such a table
Forget the seventh - seventh one...

It is not merry for the guests,
Idle is pitcher of crystal.
Sad are they all, sad are you too,
But saddest is the one uncalled.

It is not merry and not light.
Ah! You don't drink and do not eat.
How could you have forgotten this?
How could you have erred in the count?

How could you, how dared you, not understand
That six (two brothers, the third one
You yourself—with your wife, father and mother)
Are seven, since I am in this world!
You set the table for six
But with six the world is not finished.
Rather than a scarecrow among the living —
I want to be a phantom—with your family,

(With mine)... Timid, like a thief,
Oh—not touching a soul!
I sit down at the absent table setting,
The uninvited, the seventh one.
There! I knocked over a glass!
And everything that thirsted to spill out—
All the salt from my eyes, all the blood from my wounds—
From the tablecloth onto the floor.

And there is no grave! There is no separation!
The spell is gone from the table, the house is awakened!
Like death to a wedding feast,
I—life, came to supper.
I am no one: not a brother, not a son, not a husband,
Not a friend—and still I reproach you:
You who set the table for six—souls,
Not seating me—at the edge.


March 6, 1941


Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva
(October 8, 1892 – August 31, 1941)
was a Russian poet and writer.


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