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My love, how time makes hardness shine. They come in every color, pure or mixed gray-green of basalt, blood-soaked jasper, quartz, granite and feldspar, even bits of glass, smoothed by the patient jeweller of the tides. Volcano-born, earthquake-quarried, shaven by glaciers, wind-carved, heat-cracked, stratified, speckled, bright in the wet surf— no two alike, all torn from the dry land tossed up in millions on this empty shore. How small death seems among the rocks. It drifts light as a splintered bone the tide uncovers. It glints among the shattered oyster shells, gutted by gulls, bleached by salt and sun— the broken crockery of living things. Cormorants glide across the quiet bay. A falcon watches from the ridge, indifferent to the burdens I have carried here. No point in walking farther, so I sit, hollow as driftwood, dead as any stone.

Amber husk fluted with gold, fruit on the sand marked with a rich grain, treasure spilled near the shrub-pines to bleach on the boulders: your stalk has caught root among wet pebbles and drift flung by the sea and grated shells and split conch-shells. Beautiful, wide-spread, fire upon leaf, what meadow yields so fragrant a leaf as your bright leaf?

Rose, harsh rose, marred and with stint of petals, meagre flower, thin, sparse of leaf, more precious than a wet rose single on a stem— you are caught in the drift. Stunted, with small leaf, you are flung on the sand, you are lifted in the crisp sand that drives in the wind. Can the spice-rose drip such acrid fragrance hardened in a leaf?

On our first trip to the beach together I cut my foot on sharp rocks lining the shore and watched the ocean lick the crimson clean off, the salt on my tongue a slight distraction from the deep blue, the wide open, the playground sting. I’m sorry my flesh is softer than it has to be, my skin thinner than yours. I’m sorry there are parts of me I have scrubbed raw, hurt; I only wanted to be polished, untainted, good as new. I’m sorry I didn’t see the waves crashing, didn’t see any of this coming; I’m sorry I wasn’t careful, or strong. When the sea soaked up my blood that day I thought maybe it needed to drink too, needed to kiss, needed to need. I thought maybe you had always been right — when you drain my body of tears you also drain it of salt and dust so that you can shrink me down two sizes smaller and I can fit neatly into your life without taking up too much space, so that you can carry me with you wherever you go, to cities and mountains and valleys and all the oceans you’ve never explored. Tell me, please, if you find something. Tell me if you need me to search, too. Tell me if there are places you still have to visit, things you still have to unearth. Tell me if there’s any way to love you, deep blue and wide open, soft and scrubbed and thin, flesh and skin, shrinking bones, raw parts, any way at all, without letting myself bleed. shallow body, 2014 by Caitlin Hazell

I have hidden inside a sea shell but forgotten in which. Now daily I dive, filtering the sea through my fingers, to find myself. Sometimes I think a giant fish has swallowed me. Looking for it everywhere I want to make sure it will get me completely. The sea-bed attracts me, and I’m repelled by millions of sea shells that all look alike. Help, I am one of them. If only I knew, which. How often I’ve gone straight up to one of them, saying: That’s me. Only, when I prised it open it was empty.

O mer! O mœurs! O merde contemporaine! What’s left of my battles and my turmoil is in my seaside cabin: this roiling air. And yet it’s what’s outside that makes me shiver. Not the ocean coldness — something heavier. Hot black tea might help — it revives. Two kinds of glass are at hand for my thirst: that windowpane, this tumbler for my tea. If  I stare through the faceted clear sides of   the second at the first, I’ll see the darkness squinting back at me. I can’t deny that even though my eye — clairvoyant as a crystal ball — clinks like it can see something, I don’t know what comes next    ... (Zek — zek — whetstones on knives    ... a nickering    ...    Here comes a horse, it whinnies and the rider — Stick him!, thieves shout as they leap down from a tree and stab, then they lead the horse away down the long snowbound shore.) Windswept snow and sand are sorrel: tea leaves scalded by sunset. Sea foam rushes up these shores to decorate some fir trees but not others. And on the withers of a wave a gull-equestrian comes riding in — Haie! Here they both are! Snow explodes like sugar that someone is stabbing with a spoon in a glass of chai. And the tea-air sweetens, the snow-sand dissolves, the light of  it switched off, spent, an omen: now look — from deep within the firmament Time has bobbed up like the moon: the clock face of  a slice of   lemon. I clink the teaspoon in the glass — what’s that about? And even though each hourly radius of   the lemon slice is fixed in the white rind, between these translucencies pressed pulp spills out. Like lime or lemon, the taste of  Time is sour — and yet it has no odor, color, hour. My clinking teaspoon’s yet another of my self-delusions, since it’s only the glass that answers it, and Time says nothing in reply — like all the other governings that invite us to believe they have their power over us. In every object, quick or dead, there’s Time, yet Time itself  is unaware of   Time — the way a gull (such a polyglot of  fish-tongues), soaring in the dark, unknowingly glows at ten to two, her wings the phosphorescent hands of a clock. No people in this region. But — do people exist at all? And the so-called base and superstructure get, at best, a grade of  C (in Russian, “three,” troika — a kind of carriage — in which the Uriah Heeps are riding toward our “bright new future”    ...    ). Oh, plenty of   hearty pink-faced people (gray-faced, too) here    ...    but are they that real? There’s only sea and tides and more of the same. Sea air throws bombast at my cabin and makes it talk. My window’s blinded by a heavy foamy sea-pulp blast. At the bottom of my tea glass — sweetest sweet. But sugar specks are stuck to the sides, scarcely rinsed by waves of tea, whether attacked or not by my spoon. Now come the many stars that the sky is, or was — like the American flag on the moon — but under such a sky, who feels he needs Kant’s categorical imperative? So Time is always empty, a negative, and doesn’t bother us the way this landscape does. I could have sparkled like a Cicero! But even out here all words are turned into a game of  ping-pong, which makes my silenced brain come bubbling out my throat — it’s just one more white foam    ... And only an insatiable gull’s scream of dissent marks this deaf   land not as the island of a castaway but as a massive continent. Translated from the Russian by Reginald Gibbons and the author

O mer! O mœurs! O merde contemporaine! What’s left of my battles and my turmoil is in my seaside cabin: this roiling air. And yet it’s what’s outside that makes me shiver. Not the ocean coldness — something heavier. Hot black tea might help — it revives. Two kinds of glass are at hand for my thirst: that windowpane, this tumbler for my tea. If  I stare through the faceted clear sides of   the second at the first, I’ll see the darkness squinting back at me. I can’t deny that even though my eye — clairvoyant as a crystal ball — clinks like it can see something, I don’t know what comes next    ... (Zek — zek — whetstones on knives    ... a nickering    ...    Here comes a horse, it whinnies and the rider — Stick him!, thieves shout as they leap down from a tree and stab, then they lead the horse away down the long snowbound shore.) Windswept snow and sand are sorrel: tea leaves scalded by sunset. Sea foam rushes up these shores to decorate some fir trees but not others. And on the withers of a wave a gull-equestrian comes riding in — Haie! Here they both are! Snow explodes like sugar that someone is stabbing with a spoon in a glass of chai. And the tea-air sweetens, the snow-sand dissolves, the light of  it switched off, spent, an omen: now look — from deep within the firmament Time has bobbed up like the moon: the clock face of  a slice of   lemon. I clink the teaspoon in the glass — what’s that about? And even though each hourly radius of   the lemon slice is fixed in the white rind, between these translucencies pressed pulp spills out. Like lime or lemon, the taste of  Time is sour — and yet it has no odor, color, hour. My clinking teaspoon’s yet another of my self-delusions, since it’s only the glass that answers it, and Time says nothing in reply — like all the other governings that invite us to believe they have their power over us. In every object, quick or dead, there’s Time, yet Time itself  is unaware of   Time — the way a gull (such a polyglot of  fish-tongues), soaring in the dark, unknowingly glows at ten to two, her wings the phosphorescent hands of a clock. No people in this region. But — do people exist at all? And the so-called base and superstructure get, at best, a grade of  C (in Russian, “three,” troika — a kind of carriage — in which the Uriah Heeps are riding toward our “bright new future”    ...    ). Oh, plenty of   hearty pink-faced people (gray-faced, too) here    ...    but are they that real? There’s only sea and tides and more of the same. Sea air throws bombast at my cabin and makes it talk. My window’s blinded by a heavy foamy sea-pulp blast. At the bottom of my tea glass — sweetest sweet. But sugar specks are stuck to the sides, scarcely rinsed by waves of tea, whether attacked or not by my spoon. Now come the many stars that the sky is, or was — like the American flag on the moon — but under such a sky, who feels he needs Kant’s categorical imperative? So Time is always empty, a negative, and doesn’t bother us the way this landscape does. I could have sparkled like a Cicero! But even out here all words are turned into a game of  ping-pong, which makes my silenced brain come bubbling out my throat — it’s just one more white foam    ... And only an insatiable gull’s scream of dissent marks this deaf   land not as the island of a castaway but as a massive continent. Translated from the Russian

The sea-wash never ends. The sea-wash repeats, repeats. Only old songs? Is that all the sea knows? Only the old strong songs? Is that all? The sea-wash repeats, repeats.

May I for my own self song's truth reckon, Journey's jargon, how I in harsh days Hardship endured oft. Bitter breast-cares have I abided, Known on my keel many a care's hold, And dire sea-surge, and there I oft spent Narrow nightwatch nigh the ship's head While she tossed close to cliffs. Coldly afflicted, My feet were by frost benumbed. Chill its chains are; chafing sighs Hew my heart round and hunger begot Mere-weary mood. Lest man know not That he on dry land loveliest liveth, List how I, care-wretched, on ice-cold sea, Weathered the winter, wretched outcast Deprived of my kinsmen; Hung with hard ice-flakes, where hail-scur flew, There I heard naught save the harsh sea And ice-cold wave, at whiles the swan cries, Did for my games the gannet's clamour, Sea-fowls, loudness was for me laughter, The mews' singing all my mead-drink. Storms, on the stone-cliffs beaten, fell on the stern In icy feathers; full oft the eagle screamed With spray on his pinion. Not any protector May make merry man faring needy. This he little believes, who aye in winsome life Abides 'mid burghers some heavy business, Wealthy and wine-flushed, how I weary oft Must bide above brine. Neareth nightshade, snoweth from north, Frost froze the land, hail fell on earth then Corn of the coldest. Nathless there knocketh now The heart's thought that I on high streams The salt-wavy tumult traverse alone. Moaneth alway my mind's lust That I fare forth, that I afar hence Seek out a foreign fastness. For this there's no mood-lofty man over earth's midst, Not though he be given his good, but will have in his youth greed; Nor his deed to the daring, nor his king to the faithful But shall have his sorrow for sea-fare Whatever his lord will. He hath not heart for harping, nor in ring-having Nor winsomeness to wife, nor world's delight Nor any whit else save the wave's slash, Yet longing comes upon him to fare forth on the water. Bosque taketh blossom, cometh beauty of berries, Fields to fairness, land fares brisker, All this admonisheth man eager of mood, The heart turns to travel so that he then thinks On flood-ways to be far departing. Cuckoo calleth with gloomy crying, He singeth summerward, bodeth sorrow, The bitter heart's blood. Burgher knows not — He the prosperous man — what some perform Where wandering them widest draweth. So that but now my heart burst from my breast-lock, My mood 'mid the mere-flood, Over the whale's acre, would wander wide. On earth's shelter cometh oft to me, Eager and ready, the crying lone-flyer, Whets for the whale-path the heart irresistibly, O'er tracks of ocean; seeing that anyhow My lord deems to me this dead life On loan and on land, I believe not That any earth-weal eternal standeth Save there be somewhat calamitous That, ere a man's tide go, turn it to twain. Disease or oldness or sword-hate Beats out the breath from doom-gripped body. And for this, every earl whatever, for those speaking after — Laud of the living, boasteth some last word, That he will work ere he pass onward, Frame on the fair earth 'gainst foes his malice, Daring ado, ... So that all men shall honour him after And his laud beyond them remain 'mid the English, Aye, for ever, a lasting life's-blast, Delight mid the doughty. Days little durable, And all arrogance of earthen riches, There come now no kings nor Cæsars Nor gold-giving lords like those gone. Howe'er in mirth most magnified, Whoe'er lived in life most lordliest, Drear all this excellence, delights undurable! Waneth the watch, but the world holdeth. Tomb hideth trouble. The blade is layed low. Earthly glory ageth and seareth. No man at all going the earth's gait, But age fares against him, his face paleth, Grey-haired he groaneth, knows gone companions, Lordly men are to earth o'ergiven, Nor may he then the flesh-cover, whose life ceaseth, Nor eat the sweet nor feel the sorry, Nor stir hand nor think in mid heart, And though he strew the grave with gold, His born brothers, their buried bodies Be an unlikely treasure hoard.

Chekhov, at Yalta A winter evening at the cottage by the bay, And I sat in the black and gold of the dead garden Wrapped in blankets, eating my sister’s suet pudding. The fountain was wrapped in dirty straw and Just below my property in the old Tartar cemetery There was a small funeral in progress: the widow Is wearing a purple shawl, the children are bare around The shoulders and the girls are wearing orange petals At their throats. The ashen white beards of the men Are like immaculate vests from this distance. There is nothing more intolerable than suet pudding, Unless it is the visitors. The drunken visitors laughing In my kitchen, eating my duck and venison, while I hide From them here in the dark garden. The daughter of one of these gentlemen is pretty. I saw her through the window drinking Champagne from a clay mug—just under her thin blouse I saw the blue points of her breasts that turn, In opposition, both out and up like the azure slippers Of the priest who is now singing in the cemetery below my house. Once the family has gone off with its torches I’ll Climb down to the fresh grave and drop some coins For flowers, even wooden teeth for the widow so she can Attract a new husband? The black, turned soil Or our garden reminds me Of the common grave given to the children Of the Godunov Orphanage after that horrible fire: A charred horse was thrown in with them, Bags of lime, and what I understood to be a large ham That the authorities, nevertheless, declared The torso of a male child of nine or ten. The Czar, In their memory, placed a tiny trout pond over them And this inscription:A blue blanket for my little ones. My wife goes nearly naked to parties in Moscow. My sister here, at Yalta, goes sea bathing with a rope Around her that runs back to the beach where it is Attached to a donkey who is commanded by a servant With a long switch. The sea tows her out and then the donkey is whipped Sorrowfully until he has dragged her back to them. I named the donkey, Moon, after the mystery of his service To my sister. This winter He has been an excellent friend. I read to this poor beast from Three Sisters. He is a better Critic and audience than I could find in the cities. I have won an Award that will save me from arrest anywhere Inside Russia. I am going to refuse it! And then travel To Nice or Paris. My tuberculosis is worse. Tolstoi reads my stories To his family after supper. And reads them badly, I suppose! I did walk that evening all the way down to the cemetery Only to discover that my pockets were empty. I screamed up to the house for coins, for plenty Of coins! The visitors, laughing and singing, ran down To me without coats and with a lantern swinging— My sister trailed behind them On her donkey. Her square black hat Bobbing like a steamer way out in the bay. And when they reached me— I said, “Sister, pack the trunks! You hurt me! I will write that we have departed for France, for Italy.”