Karolyn Redoute

 

Osip Mandelstam

A Transit Camp, Siberia, 1938

I

crystal fog

pink snow on the ice fields

in the night

I dream of elm leaves pulsing

with color in the trees

I reach for them

the leaves

become white rags

I try to sew

the leaves into pages

but the slender threads

fall away from my hands

I look for a way to find ink

from red berries but the oblepikha

bush bleeds in my fingers

now neither hand can write

a rough-legged hawk

flies overhead

the pale wing beats fade

into clouds and when I wake

I write this in my mind

I memorize the ice fields

at the faint sound of my heart

I recall the razor in my shoe

but fail to use it

I think of the hope my wife has

the hope in silent words

II

am I real and

will death

ever come

it is easier to taste

the pale bread

of paper than the heavy

blood of ink

if I write in short breaths

unlike I used to

it is because

I count more

moments than hours

more hours than days

of someone else’s hope

Forgive me

III

for what I am

telling you some day

my words will come

to you in snow the unwritten ones

you will transcribe them

in the bleak sun

of your own winter we are alike

fast in our chain links our secrets

I predict my voice

will come to you on the days

when you lose heart and need

a witness most you may find only

a faint placing of words

forgive me

my mind must be the paper now

but come back for me

imaginary scribe

tell all about the fields

returning in the vast spring

with the rowan and the larch

and the flowers of every color