Love - Edith Södergran

My soul was a light blue dress the color of the sky;

I left it on a rock by the sea

and naked I came to you, looking like a woman.

And like a woman I sat at your table

and drank a toast in wine, inhaling the scent of some roses.

You found me beautiful, like something you saw in a dream,

I forgot everything, I forgot my childhood and my homeland,

I only knew that your caresses held me captive.

And smiling you held up a mirror and asked me to look.

I saw that my shoulders were made of dust and crumbled away,

I saw that my beauty was sick and wished only to – disappear.

Oh, hold me tight in your arms so close that I need nothing.

---

Edith Södergran (1892–1923) Finland (born in Russia)

Translated by Stina Katchadourian

Source: Love, Solitude, and the Face of Death. Selected poems by Edith Södergran, Translated by Stina Katchadourian, McKinleyville, CA: Fithian Press, 2017 [Available from: Abebooks]