What shall I do with the body I've been given

Osip Mandelstam

translated from Russian by James Greene

What shall I do with the body I've been given,

So much at one with me, so much my own?

For the quiet happiness of breathing, being able

To be alive, tell me to whom I should be grateful?

I am gardener, flower too, and not alone

In the world's dungeon.

My warmth, my exhalation, one can already see

On the window-pane of eternity.

The pattern printed in my breathing here

Has not been seen before.

Let the moment's condensation vanish without trace:

The cherished pattern no one can efface.

August 1909

(Mandelsrtam was 18)