All hover and hammer

Winter storm coming over the hills at dusk, Montana.

We love this poem by Osip Mandelstam, translated by Christian Wiman. The story goes this is the last poem he wrote, just 4 days before he died.

And I Was Alive

And I was alive in the blizzard of the blossoming pear,

Myself I stood in the storm of the bird–cherry tree.

It was all leaflife and starshower, unerring, self–shattering power,

And it was all aimed at me.

What is this dire delight flowering fleeing always earth?

What is being? What is truth?

Blossoms rupture and rapture the air,

All hover and hammer,

Time intensified and time intolerable, sweetness ravelling rot.

It is now. It is not.

by Osip Mandelstam

Translated and read by Christian Wiman

(May 4, 1937)