“We Live Without Touch” is a found poem. Composed of fourteen English translations of the first two lines of a famous 1933 poem by Osip Mandelstam, it is a timely meditation that amplifies the lines.
We live, but feel no land at our feet,
Our senses grew numb in this country of fear;
We live. We are not sure our land is under us.
We cannot sense the country that’s under our feet
We live, not feeling the earth beneath us
Our lives no longer feel ground under them.
We are living, but can’t feel the land where we stay,
We exist out of touch with the land underneath
We live without feeling our country’s pulse,
We live, but feel no land at our feet,
We live, deaf to the land beneath us,
We live, not sensing our own country beneath us,
We live, not sensing our own country beneath us,
And we live . . .
Ten steps away they dissolve, our speeches,
ten steps away they evaporate, our speeches
Our speech inaudible ten steps away,
Ten steps away no one hears our speeches,
nor ten steps off any whisper of speech.
We can’t hear ourselves, no one hears us
Our words from ten paces conceal our grief
More than ten steps away you can’t hear what we say.
At ten paces you can’t hear our words.
At ten paces our words evaporate.
Our discourse fades entirely after a couple of feet,
Ten feet away, no one hears us.
At ten paces they can’t our talk overhear.
nor ten steps off any whisper of speech.
St. Petersburg