I know the truth--give up all other truths! By Marina Tsvetayeva

I know the truth--give up all other truths!

No need for people anywhere on earth to struggle.

Look--it is evening, look, it is nearly night:

what do you speak of, poets, lovers, generals?

The wind is level now, the earth is wet with dew,

the storm of stars in the sky will turn to quiet.

And soon all of us will sleep under the earth, we

who never let each other sleep above it.

TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN BY ELAINE FEINSTEIN

From “99 Poems in Translation,” selected by Harold Pinter, et al. (Grove Press: 150 pp., $11 paper)