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The tiny appendage of the sixth sense

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← O butterfly, O Moslem-woman Octets (IV) ~ The tiny appendage of the sixth sense…
written by Osip Mandelstam
Overcoming the firmness of nature →
[1]. From the cycle Octets (IV) in Moscow Notebooks. See also Poems. Translated from Russian by Dmitri Smirnov. In Russian: Шестого чувства крошечный придаток... Link to further information



IV.


The tiny appendage of the sixth sense,
The pineal eye of the lizard,
The monasteries of snails and shells,
Or the gabble of the gleaming eyelids, —
The unreachable — it is so close!
You can’t unfasten or observe it,
Like the message put in your hand
That you have to answer right away.


May 1932, Moscow


Notes

  1. ↑ First printed in "Vozdushnye puti" II (almanac), New York, 1961, p. 26.

© Dmitri Smirnov, translation. Can be reproduced if non-commercial.