Marina Tsvetaeva, Her Life in Poems - Rolf Gross

To Osip Mandelstam
A strange anxiety befell him,
And sweet fear overcame him.
He would stand and gaze heavenwards,
And would neither see the stars, nor the morning glow,
The youth with the farsighted eye.
Asleep – he saw eagles
Flocking screaming around him,
This lead him to a wonderful explanation.
And one - the Lord of the Rocks -
Tousled his curls with his beak.
But with tightly closed eyes,
His lips parted – he was asleep.
And did not hear the night visitors
Nor see how it was sharpening its beak
The gold-spotted bird.
March 20, 1916
Marina did not realize the terrifying accuracy of her vision. Stubborn and indifferent to
the ravenous “spotted bird,” Mandelstam repeatedly denounced Stalin, who had him imprisoned
twice and finally executed in 1938.
Tsvetaeva was 23 and Mandelstam 25 when they parted in the summer of 1916.
Mandelstam returned to Koktebel “for a retreat” and Marina was faced with a crucial
change in her life.
In January 1917 Seryozha was drafted into the army. Because of his illness he was
stationed in Nizhny Novgorod, not on the front. Marina was pregnant with their second
child.
History turning somersaults rapidly became a blur: On March 3, 1917 Emperor Nicholas
II abdicated, leaving the country to a Socialist government. In October 1917 the
Bolsheviks stormed the Winter Palace. The long expected Revolution had finally taken its
course In 1918 the War with Germany was ended by Trotsky at Brest-Litovsk. In July 1918
the Tsar and his entire family was executed by the Bosheviks. Years of brutal infighting
between Bolsheviks, Menscheviks and remnants of the White Guard would follow.
Seryozha had escaped to the Crimean and joined the White Army (1917). On Marina's
instigation In any case, she was immensely proud of him. - They would only see each
other again four years later.
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