And I was alive
And I was alive in the the blizzard of the blossoming pear,
Myself I stood in the storm of the bird-cherry tree.
It was all leaflife and starshower, 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 raveling rot,
It is now. It is not.
Osip Mandelstam (1937)
Trans. Christian Wiman
I know from hearing Christian Wiman speak about this that it is the last poem Mandelstam wrote, that he was destined to be murdered by the Stalinist regime against which he protested, and he knew that at the time he wrote this. So it has that poignancy of looking back on a life loved and lived well, that is ending too soon.
The first stanza suggests that fullness of life, the beauty and richness of life on this planet, but at the same time there's something menacing in there. So while there is the blossoming pear, the bird-cherry tree, leaflife and starshower (lovely made up words) - there is also a blizzard, a storm, and self-shattering power - and "all aimed at me". And I think that perhaps it is this ambivalence of beauty and violence in life that is summoned here, this dire delight, that we are always dying, always losing what we love, always subject to a certain kind of violence by mere fact that we are human and therefore subject to aging, sickness, death - not to mention the explicit and murderous violence and cruelty of others.
And Mandelstam makes it personal - I was alive, Myself I stood, it was all aimed at me. Why is that important? This is what makes it human - I, this man, this me, this particular life which is mine. But then this self is not mentioned again in the rest of the poem, then it is what is being, what is truth. We move from my life, the tragedy of the loss of my life to a contemplation of the nature of existence, which is fleeting and destined to end.
The third and final stanza rests in the present, you can imagine him looking out of his window on a summer's day, sensing the sweetness and the decay even in that moment of beauty and falling into the present and knowing that the present is always already lost - It is now. It is not.
The first stanza has satisfying alliterations, rhythms, rhymes - and repeated sounds that emphasise a series of downbeats that underscore the speaker's aliveness, his I-ness. And then the alliterations - blizzard/blossoming; stood/storm; and rhymes - tree/me; starshower/power. These repeated sounds seem to create the contained world which compels the reader's attention to what the speaker is saying.
In the second stanza, the three questions don't ask why? but rather what? three times what? So no sense of being a victim here, but rather a kind of distancing curiosity that is belied by the language effects of dire delight flowering fleeing and the rhymes - fleeing/being; earth/truth. And somehow these sounds bring forward the sense of loss for all of us, that being is always fleeing, that the frailty of our materiality is our truth. So it is somehow impersonal, yet we are all implicated.
And in the last stanza this alliteration again: rupture and rapture; hover and hammer. A repetition of the blossoms from the first line creates a sense of continuity, but now these blossoms are too much, their fragrance hovers but also hammers and they are decaying - sweetness raveling rot. Because he knows that the end is near, time is intensified and the time that is available is too packed with sensation to bear, it is intolerable. And then the staccato of the last two lines hammers home the ending of it all. It is now. It is not.
And I was alive in the the blizzard of the blossoming pear,
Myself I stood in the storm of the bird-cherry tree.
It was all leaflife and starshower, 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 raveling rot,
It is now. It is not.
Osip Mandelstam (1937)
Trans. Christian Wiman
I know from hearing Christian Wiman speak about this that it is the last poem Mandelstam wrote, that he was destined to be murdered by the Stalinist regime against which he protested, and he knew that at the time he wrote this. So it has that poignancy of looking back on a life loved and lived well, that is ending too soon.
The first stanza suggests that fullness of life, the beauty and richness of life on this planet, but at the same time there's something menacing in there. So while there is the blossoming pear, the bird-cherry tree, leaflife and starshower (lovely made up words) - there is also a blizzard, a storm, and self-shattering power - and "all aimed at me". And I think that perhaps it is this ambivalence of beauty and violence in life that is summoned here, this dire delight, that we are always dying, always losing what we love, always subject to a certain kind of violence by mere fact that we are human and therefore subject to aging, sickness, death - not to mention the explicit and murderous violence and cruelty of others.
And Mandelstam makes it personal - I was alive, Myself I stood, it was all aimed at me. Why is that important? This is what makes it human - I, this man, this me, this particular life which is mine. But then this self is not mentioned again in the rest of the poem, then it is what is being, what is truth. We move from my life, the tragedy of the loss of my life to a contemplation of the nature of existence, which is fleeting and destined to end.
The third and final stanza rests in the present, you can imagine him looking out of his window on a summer's day, sensing the sweetness and the decay even in that moment of beauty and falling into the present and knowing that the present is always already lost - It is now. It is not.
The first stanza has satisfying alliterations, rhythms, rhymes - and repeated sounds that emphasise a series of downbeats that underscore the speaker's aliveness, his I-ness. And then the alliterations - blizzard/blossoming; stood/storm; and rhymes - tree/me; starshower/power. These repeated sounds seem to create the contained world which compels the reader's attention to what the speaker is saying.
In the second stanza, the three questions don't ask why? but rather what? three times what? So no sense of being a victim here, but rather a kind of distancing curiosity that is belied by the language effects of dire delight flowering fleeing and the rhymes - fleeing/being; earth/truth. And somehow these sounds bring forward the sense of loss for all of us, that being is always fleeing, that the frailty of our materiality is our truth. So it is somehow impersonal, yet we are all implicated.
And in the last stanza this alliteration again: rupture and rapture; hover and hammer. A repetition of the blossoms from the first line creates a sense of continuity, but now these blossoms are too much, their fragrance hovers but also hammers and they are decaying - sweetness raveling rot. Because he knows that the end is near, time is intensified and the time that is available is too packed with sensation to bear, it is intolerable. And then the staccato of the last two lines hammers home the ending of it all. It is now. It is not.
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