r o l f
w a l l i n
...though what made it has gone (1987)
Hilde Torgersen, mezzosoprano
Kenneth Karlsson, piano
appearing on the record move
and Torgersen/Karlsson
The text used in "...though what made it has gone" consists of excerpts from Osip Mandelstam's poem "Whoever FInds a Horseshoe" (Moscow, 1923), and its English translation (Burton Raffel).
Some of the lines are used in both Russian and English, some only in one language. (The lines that actually appear in English in the piece are marked with an '*'.)
How to begin, with what?
- - -
marked off by a headband
that cures frenzy,
a stupefying scent,
* strong, too strong, perhaps a man's presence,
* perhaps some powerful animal's fur,
or only the breath of mint, rubbed between palms.
- - -
* you can't leave it, and it's hard to get in.
- - -
* I was wrong, I lost the way, my count went bad.
* Our time rang like a golden globe, cast hollow, held by no one,
* and answering to Any touch, "Yes" and "No".
* The way a child answers:
* "I'll give you the apple," or "I won't give you the apple."
And as he speaks his face perfectly mirrors his voice.
- - -
A horse in the dust, snorting a lather,
* but the steep bend of his neck
* remembers running with legs flung out Ñ
* not just four of them
* but as many as the stones in the road
* all renewed in four shifts
* in proportion as hot hooves pushed off the ground.
So whoever finds a horseshoe
blows off the dust
and rubs it with wool, and it shines,
* and then
* he hangs it over the door
* to rest,
* never again to strike sparks out of flint.
* Human lips with nothing left to say
* keep the shape of the last word spoken,
- - -
What I'm saying now, is not being said by me,
* it's dug from the ground, like grains of petrified wheat.
- - -
* flat cakes of copper, gold, bronze,
* lie in the ground, all equal.
* (---) here are the teeth-marks.
- - -
Time cuts me down like a clipped coin
- - -
Osip Emilevich Mandelstam