Your name is bird hand size. Analysis of the poem “Your name is a bird in your hand...” M

The poem “Your name is a bird in your hand...” (1916) opens the cycle “Poems for Blok.” Tsvetaeva was not familiar with Blok; she saw him twice during performances and only in 1920. But already the poem of 1916 is imbued with admiration for the poet. For her, Blok is not a real poet, although the conversation is conducted on a first-name basis, as an equal to an equal, but a symbolic image of Poetry.

The main idea of ​​the poem is that Poetry is all-pervasive, it is in everything, and therefore Blok, as embodied Poetry, is also in everything. And this spiritualizing and overshadowing presence of Blok-Poetry in man, in nature, in the world is conveyed through an amazingly diverse and amazingly accurate series of sound images, reminiscent of the sound of his name - “block”. The frightened beating of a bird's wings and the clap of a ball caught in flight, the whimper of a stone thrown into a pond and the click of a trigger - all this is a “block” and a block. Blok-Poetry in everything, from birth to death:

Your name - oh, it’s impossible! —

Your name is a kiss on the eyes,

In the gentle cold of motionless eyelids.

Your name is a kiss in the snow.

Key, icy, blue sip.

With your name - deep sleep.

Blok and Tsvetaeva... What is Tsvetaeva’s secret? What makes her unlike anyone else and at the same time internally connects her with Blok? First of all, the originality of the personality of the fighting poets, the rebellious spirit, rebellion, unprecedented energy, emphasized tension. Freedom from the conventions of modern life was embodied in the features of the style. These features were reflected in the poems dedicated to Blok. They combine love confessions with a funeral lament and sound like an extremely sincere confession. The tragic feeling of loneliness makes Tsvetaeva similar to Blok. For her, Blok is “two white wings,” an angel, God’s righteous man. A block is something sublime, light, but for some reason elusive and insubstantial. Tsvetaeva glorifies the name of Blok, loves, listens to, and prays to him. In all the poems of the cycle, written from 1916 to 1921, we feel the bitterness of loss and hope for resurrection. The title poem in the cycle is “Your name is a bird in your hand...”. It is surprising in that in it, which opens the cycle, Blok’s name is never uttered, but still we unmistakably determine who we are talking about. The poem consists of 3 stanzas. In the first, Tsvetaeva recreates the phonetic and even graphic image of the word “Blok”, each line is significant in the formation of the image of Blok. “Your name is a bird in your hand” - the word “block” has only one syllable, but we feel this elusiveness of the moment. Here it is, a bird, alive, warm, but if you open your palms, it will fly away and it will be gone. This is echoed by the line “one single movement of the lips.” Say a word - it flies away and cannot be returned. For Tsvetaeva, every sound of the block name is important. When we pronounce “l”, an image of something light, cold, and blue appears. This is how the line “your name is like a piece of ice on the tongue” appeared. A piece of ice is a tickling chill of mystery, a touch to the innermost depths of the soul.

The musical palette of the poem is extremely rich: here is the ringing of a bell, the clicking of a trigger, and the clatter of hooves. The word “block” absorbs all the sounds, all the colors so skillfully applied to the canvas of the verse by the artist. He is both “a ball caught in flight” and “a stone thrown into a quiet pond.” I just want to repeat Tsvetaeva’s words from the third stanza, reminiscent of the sound of a kiss. Tsvetaeva’s block is her love, spiritual, unearthly love. Tsvetaeva tries to hear the world of his snow mask in the sound of the poet’s name: “key, icy, blue.” It is also symbolic that the last word of the poem - “deep” - contains all the sounds of the poet’s name and rhymes with it, because he is immeasurable, like his poetry .

The syntax of the poem is very close to the syntax of the lok itself. Tsvetaeva uses verbless syntactic constructions, which allows her to achieve special expression in conveying her feelings. Sentences record the present tense, but they have a special, timeless character. They emphasize Blok's immortality. This allows you to focus on the main thing for her - the associative series. That is why the poet’s tension and agitation are so great. Tsvetaeva uses syntactic parallelism: the construction of syntactic structures of stanzas 1 and 3 coincide, which gives the poem compositional completeness and integrity. The anaphora “thy name” draws our attention precisely to the key word and enhances admiration for the poet. Even Tsvetaeva’s dash carries a syntactic load - it is necessary to pause. Inversion also helps Tsvetaeva. She makes the lines especially smooth: ".. in a light click...". Blok’s visual image is helped to create tropes: metaphors (“a bird in the hand”, “a piece of ice on the tongue”) - they express an emotional attitude towards the poet; epithets (“the gentle cold of motionless eyelids”); personification (“calls the trigger”), which makes Blok’s image more vivid and memorable.

The narrative is held together not so much by the plot as by the energy of Tsvetaeva’s monologue. This energy is given to the poem by each of its elements.

Your name is a bird in your hand,
Your name is like a piece of ice on the tongue.
One single movement of the lips.
Your name is five letters.
A ball caught on the fly
Silver bell in mouth.

A stone thrown into a quiet pond
Sob as your name is.
In the light clicking of night hooves
Your big name is booming.
And he will call it to our temple
The trigger clicks loudly.

Your name - oh, you can’t! -
Your name is a kiss on the eyes,
In the gentle cold of motionless eyelids.
Your name is a kiss in the snow.
Key, icy, blue sip...
With your name - deep sleep.

Analysis of the poem “Your name is a bird in your hand” by Tsvetaeva

M. Tsvetaeva treated the creativity and personality of A. Blok with great trepidation and respect. There were practically no relations between them, not even friendly ones. This is partly explained by the fact that the poetess idolized the symbolist poet, considering him an unearthly creature who mistakenly visited our world. Tsvetaeva dedicated a whole cycle of poems to Blok, including “Your name is a bird in your hand...” (1916).

The work, in fact, is a set of epithets that the poetess gives to Blok’s surname. All of them emphasize the unreality of the poet, of which Tsvetaeva was sure. These various definitions are united by swiftness and ephemerality. A name consisting of five letters (according to pre-revolutionary spelling, the letter “er” was written at the end of Blok’s surname) for the poetess is like “one single movement of the lips.” She compares it to objects (a piece of ice, a ball, a bell) that are in motion; short-term, abrupt sounds (“clicking… hooves”, “clicking trigger”); symbolic intimate actions (“kiss on the eyes”, “kiss on the snow”). Tsvetaeva deliberately does not pronounce the surname itself (“Oh, you can’t!”), considering this blasphemy towards an incorporeal creature.

Blok really made a strong impression on nervous girls, who often fell in love with him. He was at the mercy of the symbols and images created in his imagination, which allowed him to exert an inexplicable influence on those around him. Tsvetaeva fell under this influence, but managed to preserve the originality of her own works, which undoubtedly benefited her. The poetess had a very subtle understanding of poetry and saw real talent in Blok’s work. In the poet’s poems, which seemed complete nonsense to an inexperienced reader, Tsvetaeva saw a manifestation of cosmic forces.

Of course, these two strong creative personalities were similar in many ways, especially in the ability to completely detach themselves from real life and exist in the world of their own dreams. Moreover, Blok succeeded in this to an incredible extent. That is why Tsvetaeva respected and secretly envied the symbolist poet to such an extent. The main difference between the poetess and impressionable young ladies was that there could be no talk of love. Tsvetaeva could not imagine how one could experience too “earthly” feelings for an ephemeral creature. The only thing the poetess is counting on is spiritual intimacy without any physical contact.

The poem ends with the phrase “With your name, the sleep is deep,” which returns the reader to reality. Tsvetaeva admitted that she often fell asleep while reading.

Alexander Alexandrovich Blok is one of the key figures in the literary process of the early twentieth century. He was admired by almost all the poets and prose writers of that time. They spoke of him as an extraterrestrial person, gifted from above. He was regularly mentioned in various memoirs and biographies; not just poems, but entire poetic cycles were dedicated to him. One of these cycles is the collection “Poems for Blok” by Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva, which opens with the poem “Your name is a bird in your hand...”.

The cycle was created between 1916 and 1921. If you look at the dates of writing each of the poems, it becomes clear that Tsvetaeva did not plan to publish an entire collection; this idea arose after Blok's death. Thus, the poetess wrote the first works included in the cycle in the spring of 1916; “Your name is a bird in your hand” belongs to this group. Then the work was interrupted for four years, and Tsvetaeva again turned to Blok only in 1920 in the poem “Like a weak ray through the black darkness of hells...”. This is due to the poet’s performance in Moscow on May 9, 1920, which she personally attended. In 1921, Blok dies. In response to this tragedy, ten new poems are the result of the cycle.

Genre and size

The poem “Your name is a bird in your hand...” opens the cycle “Poems to Blok” and, contrary to popular belief, is not a response to Blok’s death (remember: it was written in 1916). So it is completely wrong to consider it a kind of epitaph.

“Your name is a bird in your hand...” carries the features of a message: the lyrical work is addressed to a specific person (as indicated by the name of the poetic cycle). The poem is a direct response to Blok’s work and directly expresses Tsvetaeva’s attitude towards the poet’s lyrics. The poetess also regularly uses the pronoun “yours,” which is typical for the genre of the message.

However, it is important to remember that the lyrical heroine goes beyond the scope of ordinary conversation and address; the poem “Your name is a bird in the hand...” does not imply any response, therefore it can be classified as a message genre only with a number of reservations.

Poetic meter: four-beat beater.

Composition

The compositional division of the poem is as follows: 3 stanzas, each with six lines. The first and third stanzas are united by the refrain “thy name”:

It is also noteworthy how the dynamics of the poem change from the first to the third stanza. If it begins with fairly neutral images (a ball, a bell, and so on), then it ends with images containing funeral semantics (cold eyelids, deep sleep). The second stanza is perhaps the most dramatic of all. Filled with sound images (splash of water, shot, thunder, click of a trigger), it stands out sharply against the background of other stanzas, which are more static, calm, almost silent. It’s as if the dramatic shot of the second stanza is followed by a sad denouement, a gradual acceptance from “oh, you can’t!” to “kiss the snow.”

Idea

The poem “Your name is a bird in your hand” is a kind of hymn to Blok. The lyrical heroine is very emotional (in the Tsvetaeva spirit) and completely sincerely admires the poet, talks about what he means to her. Playing with the name Blok, Tsvetaeva encloses in these “five letters” (“Blok” in pre-revolutionary spelling) the entire incredible range of images and sensations associated with the creator.

So, for her, Blok’s work is at the same time something light, subtle, subtle, fragile (“a bird in the hand”, “a piece of ice on the tongue”) and a sharp manifesto, a terrifying challenge (“your loud name thunders”, “will call it to our temple // loud clicking trigger"). In her eyes, the poet is a supernatural figure, almost unreal, unattainable. This feeling is created due to a very interesting and unusual selection of images: almost all of them are insubstantial. These are just moments, flashes, moments, short-term and fleeting. These are echoes and barely perceptible touches. The trembling of a living bird in the palms, the touch of cold skin with lips, the sound of a stone piercing the calm surface of the water. Everything is fragile, everything is slipping away. The block cannot be caught, reached, or comprehended. In this fragility and elusiveness one can discern a sad premonition of the poet’s imminent death. This is revealed in the third stanza: “A kiss on the eyes, // In the tender cold of closed eyelids” - this is how they kiss the dead, “deep sleep” can be seen as a metaphor for death.

The poem, despite its small volume, is filled with many emotions of completely different degrees of strength and intensity. This is the somewhat childish joy of the first stanza with its playful images (ball, bell), the drama, dynamics and high tension of the second, the cold calm of the third. Perhaps only the lyrical heroine Tsvetaeva is able to harmonize such a wide range of emotions and feelings, smoothly flowing into each other.

Means of artistic expression

The main means of creating such vivid images in a poem is, of course, metaphor. It is on this that the entire lyrical work is actually built. “Your name is a bird in your hand...” consists almost entirely of a metaphorical play on the name of Alexander Alexandrovich Blok. “Your name is a bird in your hand, // Your name is a piece of ice on your tongue, // One single movement of your lips, // Your name is five letters” and the like - all these are metaphors. It is also interesting that there is a clear antithesis between some of them. Thus, Tsvetaeva associates the poet’s name with something light and quiet, but at the same time it “thunders.”

What makes metaphor more effective is syntactic parallelism, which Tsvetaeva uses quite often. By constructing sentences according to one principle and resorting to anaphora (unity of principle), the poetess seems to add more and more new colors to Blok’s portrait and intensify the atmosphere.

Epithets also play an important role in creating images. Characteristics such as “gentle cold” and “big name” make the picture richer and more prominent.

When analyzing a poem, you also need to pay attention to the sound design. Alliteration is a characteristic feature of Tsvetaeva’s lyrics and in the poem “Your name is a bird in the hand...” it is also present. Thus, in the line “Your loud name thunders,” the repetition of the sound [r] creates a noise effect, and the repetitions of the hissing [zh] in the line “In the gentle cold of motionless eyelids” help convey the feeling of a lulling blizzard, a blizzard.

In the poem, the poetess also uses assonance. In the final lines (“A key, icy, blue sip... // With your name, deep sleep”) one hears something drawn-out, long, like, in fact, the dream itself (repeat [o]).

Interesting? Save it on your wall!

Among all the poets and writers who surrounded Marina Tsvetaeva during her creative dawn, she supported only the poetic works of A. Blok. His rhyming creations delighted her. She repeatedly noticed that Blok’s poems seemed to be sent from above and written under the influence of an unearthly force. Tsvetaeva simply did not take the rest of her creative comrades seriously.

The poetess never spoke openly about the feelings she had towards Alexander Blok. Of course, the woman repeatedly attended his literary evenings, constantly observing the poet, his gestures, habits and behavior. And this is not surprising, because Blok had extraordinary charm. Many women of that time fell in love with him. However, Tsvetaeva could not imagine herself in a love relationship with this man. He was an inspiration to her.

Tsvetaeva presented her idol with one of the cycles of her creative works. In 1916, the world learned the meaning of the poem “Your name is a bird in your hand...”.

After reading this work, the reader can fully understand and feel everything that the poetess experienced. She compares his name to a bird that you can hold in your hand. She repeatedly pronounces those cherished and desired five letters that previously made up Blok’s surname. Tsvetaeva praises the poet; she cannot imagine him next to her, in a love affair.

Further, the reader can replace the slight weakness of the poetess, who nevertheless writes that the poet’s name is like a kiss in the eyes. However, such a mood in the rhymed lines is fanned with coolness. After all, Marina Tsvetaeva classifies Blok as an ideal that cannot exist in nature, which means that he is somehow connected with otherworldly space.

Even after the poet’s death, Tsvetaeva considered him a man of mystery. To some extent, she deified Alexander Blok, therefore, she did not dare to put her name on a par with him. The poetess often fell asleep with a small collection of Blok’s poems.

In her work, she writes that with the name of the poet her sleep is so deep and so calm. He appeared before her and they communicated. Tsvetaeva thought about the real spiritual connection that could exist between her and her idol. However, these were the speculations of an admiring woman and nothing more. After all, Tsvetaeva and Blok were separated by hundreds and tens of kilometers. And meetings of poets took place very rarely.

Marina Tsvetaeva is a very extraordinary Russian poet, whose work is distinguished by expressiveness and emotionality. All her poems show a love of truth and freedom - in this Tsvetaeva is in many ways reminiscent of Alexander Blok, whose influence can be seen in many of her works.

Tsvetaeva and Blok did not know each other personally, but it is known that the poetess admired the genius of the Silver Age. In her work there are many works dedicated to Blok. One of them is “Your name is a bird in your hand...”

The image of Blok in this poem symbolizes not just a mystical poet, whose works are permeated with symbolism. Blok appears as an unattainable role model, an idol whom Tsvetaeva literally deifies. The work examines the theme of the poet and his work. And from it it is easy to conclude that Tsvetaeva literally trembles before the name of Blok. In fact, the entire work is a “game” with the poet’s surname. Tsvetaeva examines its sound and the associations that arise with it, so that readers have a very real picture of sensations, not only visual and auditory, but also gustatory and tactile:

- “a ball caught on the fly” - an analogue of a quiet elastic sound;

- “silver bell in the mouth” - sound and taste associations;

- “a stone thrown into a quiet pond” - the dull sound of the word “block”;

- “loudly clicking trigger” - clear sound;

- “light clicking of night hooves” - dull knocking.

One gets the feeling that the poetess hears the name “Blok” in everything around her, and in the poem there is a gradation of sounds from very quiet, like a ball hitting, to a loud, distinct one. It seems that with each line not only the sound intensifies, but the emotional intensity also increases, which at the end of the poem resembles a real explosion:

Your name - oh, you can’t! -

Your name is a kiss in the eyes...

Tsvetaeva uses ellipses, exclamation marks, and dashes, which are intended to reflect the confusion of thoughts and feelings. For her, a poet is not only a sublime, but also a seemingly forbidden topic. The last six lines reflect the true nature of the poem - tragic. And with the line “With your name, deep sleep” Tsvetaeva introduces a new theme - loneliness and death.

The poetess perceives Blok as something unattainable and elusive, and every sound of his name is important to her. The poem creates the impression that its subject is mysterious and cold, and Tsvetaeva herself seems to reveal to us the most intimate corners of the soul.

The poem has three stanzas, each of which carries its own meaning. The first stanza paints a metaphorical image of the poet. The second is built on phonetic associations, and the third reveals the author’s attitude towards the poet. For her work, Tsvetaeva chose an adjacent rhyme, which allows her to most accurately reflect its emotional intensity. Each dash symbolizes a semantic pause. And the anaphora “your name” allows you to constantly keep the key image of the poem in your mind, endowing it with exceptional features.

In general, the work looks very colorful, full of clearly written images and numerous metaphors and personifications. All this allows you not only to feel Tsvetaeva’s attitude towards the poet at the level of various sensations, but also makes his image itself more vivid and memorable.

Many agree that before us is a magnificent example of suggestive lyrics, as if evoking in the reader the same feelings that the author himself experiences in relation to Blok and his work.

The poem “Your name is a bird in your hand...” is considered one of Tsvetaeva’s most famous works. It is distinguished by the depth and sincerity of feelings, and it invariably leaves a great emotional mark on the reader’s soul.

Marina Tsvetaeva, contrary to the opinion of amateurs from the pen, dedicated the poem “Your name is a bird in the hand” not to her husband, Sergei Efron, but to her poetic idol, Alexander Blok. He was the only poet whom Tsvetaeva idolized; she dedicated several poems to him, and “Your Name” is one of the most striking.

What attracted the poetess so much to Blok was this aria from another opera; perhaps she was attracted to the great symbolist by what was missing in herself - the mystery of the lines and the play with symbols. It must be said that in this poem symbolism is used to the fullest; more on this in the analysis below.

Symbolism of Tsvetaeva

Symbolism is actively used in the lines (sorry for the repetition). A bird in your hand is the ability to keep your freedom under control, which Marina lacked. The ice on the tongue is the depth of Blok’s lines, when reading which you want to remain silent, and the silver bell is the sweet and sour aftertaste after reading Blok’s works.

Tsvetaeva finds symbols around herself that the poet’s name can be compared to. This is the clicking of night hooves, and the sound of a stone thrown into a pond, and even the click of a trigger near the temple.

And he will call it to our temple

The trigger clicks loudly.

Well, not knowing Blok closely, Tsvetaeva tries to get closer to the poet, at least in poetry:

Your name is a kiss on the eyes.

The Riddle of the Poem

There is a riddle in the poem that raises questions among those who do not know the grammar of those years. Why:

Is your name five letters?

A block is 4 letters, why five? Everything is simple, in the language of that time, at the end of Blok’s last name there was the letter “yat”, in simple terms, a solid sign “Blok”. Here are five letters for you.

The poem ends with a comparison of the hero's name with a kiss in the snow, but Tsvetaeva puts the final point by saying that with this name the dream is deep. We always associate sleep with calm and trust. Concluding the poem, Tsvetaeva is satisfied with her work, pleased that she has once again given her beloved poet what he deserves.

From the poems we conclude that Blok aroused a storm of emotions in Tsvetaeva, his creativity and mystery always attracted the poetess, and in many ways she took her example in her work from him. It is impossible to say now whether Marina built an idol from Blok, but the fact that she put him at the head of Russian poetry is a fact.

Your name is a bird in your hand,
Your name is like a piece of ice on the tongue.
One single movement of the lips.
Your name is five letters.
A ball caught on the fly
Silver bell in mouth.

A stone thrown into a quiet pond
Sob as your name is.
In the light clicking of night hooves
Your big name is booming.
And he will call it to our temple
The trigger clicks loudly.

Your name - oh, you can’t! -
Your name is a kiss on the eyes,
In the gentle cold of motionless eyelids.
Your name is a kiss in the snow.
Key, icy, blue sip...
With your name - deep sleep.

Blok and Tsvetaeva... What is Tsvetaeva’s secret? What makes her unlike anyone else and at the same time internally connects her with Blok? First of all, the originality of the personality of the fighting poets, the rebellious spirit, rebellion, unprecedented energy, emphasized tension. Freedom from the conventions of modern life was embodied in the features of the style. These features were reflected in the poems dedicated to Blok. They combine love confessions with a funeral lament and sound like an extremely sincere confession. The tragic feeling of loneliness makes Tsvetaeva similar to Blok. For her, Blok is “two white wings,” an angel, God’s righteous man. A block is something sublime, light, but for some reason elusive and insubstantial. Tsvetaeva glorifies the name of Blok, loves, listens to, and prays to him. In all the poems of the cycle, written from 1916 to 1921, we feel the bitterness of loss and hope for resurrection. The title poem in the cycle is “Your name is a bird in your hand...”. It is surprising in that in it, which opens the cycle, Blok’s name is never uttered, but still we unmistakably determine who we are talking about. The poem consists of 3 stanzas. In the first, Tsvetaeva recreates the phonetic and even graphic image of the word “Blok”, each line is significant in the formation of the image of Blok. “Your name is a bird in your hand” - the word “block” has only one syllable, but we feel this elusiveness of the moment. Here it is, a bird, alive, warm, but if you open your palms, it will fly away and it will be gone. This is echoed by the line “one single movement of the lips.” Say a word - it flies away and cannot be returned. For Tsvetaeva, every sound of the block name is important. When we pronounce “l”, an image of something light, cold, and blue appears. This is how the line “your name is like a piece of ice on the tongue” appeared. A piece of ice is a tickling chill of mystery, a touch to the innermost depths of the soul.

The musical palette of the poem is extremely rich: here is the ringing of a bell, the clicking of a trigger, and the clatter of hooves. The word “block” absorbs all the sounds, all the colors so skillfully applied to the canvas of the verse by the artist. He is both “a ball caught in flight” and “a stone thrown into a quiet pond.” I just want to repeat Tsvetaeva’s words from the third stanza, reminiscent of the sound of a kiss. Tsvetaeva’s block is her love, spiritual, unearthly love. Tsvetaeva tries to hear the world of his snow mask in the sound of the poet’s name: “key, icy, blue.” It is also symbolic that the last word of the poem - “deep” - contains all the sounds of the poet’s name and rhymes with it, because he is immeasurable, like his poetry .

The syntax of the poem is very close to the syntax of the lok itself. Tsvetaeva uses verbless syntactic constructions, which allows her to achieve special expression in conveying her feelings. Sentences record the present tense, but they have a special, timeless character. They emphasize Blok's immortality. This allows you to focus on the main thing for her - the associative series. That is why the poet’s tension and agitation are so great. Tsvetaeva uses syntactic parallelism: the construction of syntactic structures of stanzas 1 and 3 coincide, which gives the poem compositional completeness and integrity. The anaphora “thy name” draws our attention precisely to the key word and enhances admiration for the poet. Even Tsvetaeva’s dash carries a syntactic load - it is necessary to pause. Inversion also helps Tsvetaeva. She makes the lines especially smooth: ".. in a light click...". Blok’s visual image is helped to create tropes: metaphors (“a bird in the hand”, “a piece of ice on the tongue”) - they express an emotional attitude towards the poet; epithets (“the gentle cold of motionless eyelids”); personification (“calls the trigger”), which makes Blok’s image more vivid and memorable.

The narrative is held together not so much by the plot as by the energy of Tsvetaeva’s monologue. This energy is given to the poem by each of its elements.

Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva

Your name is a bird in your hand,
Your name is like a piece of ice on the tongue.
One single movement of the lips.
Your name is five letters.
A ball caught on the fly
Silver bell in mouth.

A stone thrown into a quiet pond
Sob as your name is.
In the light clicking of night hooves
Your big name is booming.
And he will call it to our temple
The trigger clicks loudly.

Your name - oh, you can’t! -
Your name is a kiss on the eyes,
In the gentle cold of motionless eyelids.
Your name is a kiss in the snow.
Key, icy, blue sip...
With your name - deep sleep.

Alexander Blok

Marina Tsvetaeva was very skeptical about the work of the poets she knew. The only person she idolized in the literal sense of the word was Alexander Blok. Tsvetaeva admitted that his poems have nothing to do with the earthly and ordinary, they were written not by a person, but by some sublime and mythical creature.

Tsvetaeva was not closely acquainted with Blok, although she often attended his literary evenings and each time never ceased to be amazed at the power of the charm of this extraordinary man. It is not surprising that many women were in love with him, among whom were even close friends of the poetess. However, Tsvetaeva never spoke about her feelings for Blok, believing that in this case there could be no talk of love. After all, for her the poet was unattainable, and nothing could diminish this image created in the imagination of a woman who loved to dream so much.

Marina Tsvetaeva dedicated quite a lot of poems to this poet, which were later compiled into the cycle “To Blok”. The poetess wrote some of them during the life of her idol, including a work entitled “Your name is a bird in your hand...”, which was published in 1916. This poem fully reflects the sincere admiration that Tsvetaeva feels for Blok, claiming that this feeling is one of the strongest that she has ever experienced in her life.

The poetess associates the name Blok with a bird in her hand and a piece of ice on her tongue. “One single movement of the lips. Your name is five letters,” says the author. Some clarity should be brought here, since Blok’s surname was actually written before the revolution with a yat at the end, and therefore consisted of five letters. And it was pronounced in one breath, which the poetess did not fail to note. Considering herself unworthy to even develop the topic of a possible relationship with this amazing man, Tsvetaeva seems to be trying out his name on her tongue and writing down the associations that come to her. “A ball caught on the fly, a silver bell in the mouth” - these are not all the epithets with which the author awards his hero. His name is the sound of a stone thrown into the water, a woman's sob, the clatter of hooves and the rumble of thunder. “And the loudly clicking trigger will call him to our temple,” notes the poetess.

Despite her reverent attitude towards Blok, Tsvetaeva still allows herself a little liberty and declares: “Your name is a kiss on the eyes.” But the coldness of the other world emanates from him, because the poetess still does not believe that such a person can exist in nature. After Blok’s death, she would write that she was surprised not by his tragic picture, but by the fact that he generally lived among ordinary people, while creating unearthly poems, deep and filled with hidden meaning. For Tsvetaeva, Blok remained a mystery poet, in whose work there was a lot of mystical. And this is precisely what elevated him to the rank of a kind of deity, with whom Tsvetaeva simply did not dare to compare herself, considering that she was unworthy even to be next to this extraordinary person.

Addressing him, the poetess emphasizes: “With your name, deep sleep.” And there is no pretense in this phrase, since Tsvetaeva really falls asleep with a volume of Blok’s poems in her hands. She dreams of amazing worlds and countries, and the image of the poet becomes so intrusive that the author even catches himself thinking about some kind of spiritual connection with this person. However, she is unable to verify whether this is actually the case. Tsvetaeva lives in Moscow, and Blok lives in St. Petersburg, their meetings are rare and random, there is no romance or high relationships.

Marina Tsvetaeva and Alexander Blok

But this does not bother Tsvetaeva, for whom the poet’s poems are the best proof of the immortality of the soul.

I am. You will. Marina Tsvetaeva

I am. You - will be.

My Translation from Marina Tsvetaeva. June, 1918

I am. You - will be. Between us -
...................................store of wisdom.
I drink. You're thirsty. Agreement - uselessness.
Us dozens, centuries, hundred thousands years
Separate. - God does not build bridges.

Please, Be! - this is my commandment.
Please, Let me pass by, with b"ated breath...
I am. You - will be. You"ll tell me over
...................................ten Springs,
............through many trials: "I - am..." ,
.........................and I"ll answer:
"Once up on a time...,
...............we shall wait long before..."

(Marina Tsvetaeva)

I am. You will. Between us -
...................................abyss.
I drink. You are thirsty. It is futile to come to an agreement.
We are ten years old, we are a hundred thousand years old
They disconnect. - God doesn't build bridges.

Be! - this is my commandment. Give - by
Pass without breathing without disturbing the growth.
I am. You will. In ten springs
You will say: - I am! - and I will say: -
....................................once upon a time...

********************************************
2.

(YOUR NAME IS A BIRD ON MY PALM!)

Your name is a bird on my palm.
Your name is ice on my tongue.
Your name is a stone in a swamp.
It is a bullet, and a cramp.

Your name is an invisible moment
of my lips,
A kiss in the eyes,
My breath in your hold.
Sometimes - a reasonable advise.
Sometimes - snow, and a scold.

A horse on a cloud,
A ball which I try to catch,
A candle which is blown out,
A painful skin scratch...

It is a light from darkness,
A nap which is deep and clean.
Your name is a holy sparkle,
A game which I need to win.

*
POEMS FOR THE BLOCK

YOUR NAME IS A BIRD IN YOUR HAND.

Marina Tsvetaeva

Your name is a bird in your hand,
Your name is like a piece of ice on the tongue,
One single movement of the lips,
Your name is five letters.
A ball caught on the fly
Silver tambourine in the mouth,

A stone thrown into a quiet pond


Your big name is thundering.
And he will call it to our temple
The trigger clicks loudly.

Your name - oh, it’s impossible! -
Your name is a kiss on the eyes,
In the tender cold of motionless eyelids,
Your name is a kiss in the snow.
Key, icy, blue sip...
With your name - deep sleep.

The smell, the smell of your cigarette! M. Tsvetaeva

Scent, scent of your cigarette. Marina Tsvetaeva.

(My Translation from Marina Tsvetaeva).

Scent, scent
of your cigarette!
Dark complexioned cigar"s
Scent!
Finger-rings, feathers,
Eyes, panama...
Blue night
in Monaco.

Fu"ny scent,
Musty a little:
West in red haze -
Lamppost -
a single illuminated pillar -
Moonlit,
roar of Temza river waves,
What else?
What else...

Ah! It smells like Vein!
Perfume, hay, an open stage,
like -
......Betrayal,
...............Adultery!

***
(Marina Tsvetaeva)

Smell, smell
Your cigarette!
dark cigar
Smell!
Rings, feathers,
Eyes, Panama hats...
Blue night
Monaco.

The smell is strange
A little musty:
In the red fog -
West.
Lamp post
And the roar of the Thames,
What else?
With what?

Ah, Venoy!
Perfume, hay,
Open stage
Treason!
.............................................
*********************************************

I kiss you on the forehead. Marina Tsvetaeva.

(My Translation from Marina Tsvetaeva. June 1917)

A kiss on the forehead - to wash away care,
...................to white it out.
I kiss your forehead.

A kiss on the eyes - your sleeplessness
terminal.
....................Insomnia stop.
I kiss your eyes.

Ah, kiss on these lips! Quench, slake
thirst forever! Drink water, my love!
I kiss your lips.

A kiss on the forehead - drop out of memory.
You"ll never be missed!
I kiss on your forehead.

Kissing on the forehead means erasing worries. M. Tsvetaeva

Marina Tsvetaeva

Kissing on the forehead means erasing worries.
I kiss you on the forehead.

Kissing your eyes will relieve insomnia.
I kiss you in the eyes.

Kiss on the lips - give water to drink.
I kiss you on the lips.

Kissing on the forehead - erasing the memory.
I kiss you on the forehead.

***
illustration by the artist Gino
Art Deco

Reviews

The daily audience of the portal Stikhi.ru is about 200 thousand visitors, who in total view more than two million pages according to the traffic counter, which is located to the right of this text. Each column contains two numbers: the number of views and the number of visitors.

Your name is a bird in your hand,
Your name is like a piece of ice on the tongue.
One single movement of the lips.
Your name is five letters.
A ball caught on the fly
Silver bell in mouth.

A stone thrown into a quiet pond
Sob as your name is.
In the light clicking of night hooves
Your big name is booming.
And he will call it to our temple
The trigger clicks loudly.

Your name - oh, you can’t! -
Your name is a kiss on the eyes,
In the gentle cold of motionless eyelids.
Your name is a kiss in the snow.
Key, icy, blue sip...
With your name - deep sleep.

Analysis of the poem “Your name is a bird in your hand” by Tsvetaeva

M. Tsvetaeva treated the creativity and personality of A. Blok with great trepidation and respect. There were practically no relations between them, not even friendly ones. This is partly explained by the fact that the poetess idolized the symbolist poet, considering him an unearthly creature who mistakenly visited our world. Tsvetaeva dedicated a whole cycle of poems to Blok, including “Your name is a bird in your hand...” (1916).

The work, in fact, is a set of epithets that the poetess gives to Blok’s surname. All of them emphasize the unreality of the poet, of which Tsvetaeva was sure. These various definitions are united by swiftness and ephemerality. A name consisting of five letters (according to pre-revolutionary spelling, the letter “er” was written at the end of Blok’s surname) for the poetess is like “one single movement of the lips.” She compares it to objects (a piece of ice, a ball, a bell) that are in motion; short-term, abrupt sounds (“clicking… hooves”, “clicking trigger”); symbolic intimate actions (“kiss on the eyes”, “kiss on the snow”). Tsvetaeva deliberately does not pronounce the surname itself (“Oh, you can’t!”), considering this blasphemy towards an incorporeal creature.

Blok really made a strong impression on nervous girls, who often fell in love with him. He was at the mercy of the symbols and images created in his imagination, which allowed him to exert an inexplicable influence on those around him. Tsvetaeva fell under this influence, but managed to preserve the originality of her own works, which undoubtedly benefited her. The poetess had a very subtle understanding of poetry and saw real talent in Blok’s work. In the poet’s poems, which seemed complete nonsense to an inexperienced reader, Tsvetaeva saw a manifestation of cosmic forces.

Of course, these two strong creative personalities were similar in many ways, especially in the ability to completely detach themselves from real life and exist in the world of their own dreams. Moreover, Blok succeeded in this to an incredible extent. That is why Tsvetaeva respected and secretly envied the symbolist poet to such an extent. The main difference between the poetess and impressionable young ladies was that there could be no talk of love. Tsvetaeva could not imagine how one could experience too “earthly” feelings for an ephemeral creature. The only thing the poetess is counting on is spiritual intimacy without any physical contact.

The poem ends with the phrase “With your name, the sleep is deep,” which returns the reader to reality. Tsvetaeva admitted that she often fell asleep while reading.

Marina Tsvetaeva’s poem “Your name is a bird in your hand” was written in 1916 and dedicated to Alexander Blok. This poem opens a whole cycle of Tsvetaeva’s poetry, written from 1916 to 1921.

The poem “Your name is a bird in your hand” is dedicated to Blok, however, Tsvetaeva never mentioned his name in the work itself, but everyone understands who it is about. Blok and Tsvetaeva were kindred spirits, rebellious spirit, inexhaustible energy, rebelliousness and originality of personality - all this made them similar.

In the poem, the poetess tries to play with every sound of Blok’s name. His name is something warm, like a bird in your hand, but elusive; open your palm and it will fly away. The sound “l” in the poet’s name prompted Tsvetaeva to associate it with a piece of ice on the tongue. His image for her is at the same time excitingly cold - one sound, one movement of the lips pronounced: “Blok” tickle the tongue with a chill and touch the innermost corners of the soul.

For Tsvetaeva, Blok is the embodiment of her spiritual love, he is like an angel, like a person, but sublime, elusive and insubstantial.

Blok’s name is just “five letters”; the poet always signed himself “A. Blok,” but the musicality of the poem is amazing, here is the ringing of a bell, the clatter of hooves, and the click of a trigger. The word “Block” for Tsvetaeva is such a palette of sounds - a ball caught in the wind, a stone thrown into a quiet pond, and the sound of a kiss.

In general, the entire poem is a monologue of the poetess. There is no plot in a poem, it is just a set of emotions. When you read Tsvetaeva’s lines, diametrically opposed feelings replace each other. Warmth from the bird in the palm, then suddenly a chill, then some kind of suddenness takes over from the lines about the caught ball, then it’s as if a quiet sound is heard from a stone thrown into the water and then the loud clatter of hooves, and in the finale, first a warm, loving and unforgettable kiss in the eyes and cold and sobering - in the snow.

The poem gives rise to such an expression of feelings; Blok himself probably evoked such feelings in Tsvetaeva. Symbolically, the verse ends with the word “deep,” a word that contains all the sounds of Blok’s name and reflects his essence, the depth and immensity of his poetry.

Your name is a bird in your hand,
Your name is like a piece of ice on the tongue,
One single movement of the lips,
Your name is five letters.
A ball caught on the fly
Silver bell in mouth

A stone thrown into a quiet pond
Sob as your name is.
In the light clicking of night hooves
Your big name is booming.
And he will call it to our temple
The trigger clicks loudly.

Your name - oh, you can’t! -
Your name is a kiss on the eyes,
In the tender cold of motionless eyelids,
Your name is a kiss in the snow.
Key, icy, blue sip...
With your name - deep sleep.

gentle ghost
Knight without reproach
Who are you called by?
In my young life?

In the gray darkness
Standing there, like a robe
Snow is dressed.

It's not the wind
Drives me around the city
Oh, the third one
Evening I smell the enemy.

Blue-eyed
He jinxed me
Snow singer.

Snow Swan
He lays feathers under my feet.
Feathers are flying
And slowly they sink into the snow.

So on the feathers,
I'm going to the door
Behind which is death.

He sings to me
Behind the blue windows
He sings to me
With distant bells,

With a long cry
Swan click -
Calling.

Dear ghost!
I know that I'm dreaming everything.
Do me a favor:
Amen, amen, scatter!
Amen.

You are passing to the West of the Sun,
You will see the evening light
You are passing to the West of the Sun,
And the snowstorm covers its trail.

Past my windows - impassive -
You will walk in the snowy silence,
My beautiful righteous man of God,
Quiet light of my soul.

I won’t take your soul for granted!
Your path is indestructible.
Into a hand pale from kisses,
I won't drive in my nail.

And I won’t call you by name,
And I won’t reach out with my hands.
Wax holy face
I’ll just bow from afar.

And, standing under the slow snow,
I'll kneel in the snow,
And in your holy name,
I will kiss the evening snow. -

Where the majestic tread
You walked in deathly silence,
Quiet light - holy glory -
Almighty of my soul.

The beast has a den,
The way for the wanderer,
For the dead - drogues.
To each his own.

For a woman to be disingenuous
The king is to rule,
I need to praise
Your name.

In Moscow, the domes are on fire!
In Moscow, the bells are ringing!
And I have tombs in a row, -
Queens and kings sleep in them.

It’s easier to breathe - than anywhere on earth!
And you don’t know what is dawning in the Kremlin
I pray to you - until dawn!

And you pass over your Neva
About that time, as over the Moscow River
I stand with my head down
And the lanterns stick together.

With all my insomnia I love you,
With all my insomnia I listen to you -
About that time, as throughout the Kremlin
The bell ringers wake up...

But my river is with your river,
But my hand is with your hand
They won’t come together, my joy, until
The dawn will not catch up with the dawn.

They thought it was a man!
And they forced me to die.
Dead now, forever.
- Cry for the dead angel!

He's at sunset
Sang the beauty of the evening.
Three wax fires
They chatter, they are hypocritical.

Rays came from him -
Hot strings in the snow!
Three wax candles -
To the sun! Lightbringer!

Oh look how
The eyelids have sunken dark!
Oh look how
His wings are broken!

The black reader is reading,
Idle hands cross themselves...
- The singer lies dead
And he celebrates Sunday.

It must be behind that grove
The village where I lived
It must be simpler love
And easier than I expected.

Hey, idols, may you die! -
He stood up and raised his whip,
And when I shout after, it’s a blast,
And again the bells sing.

Over the wretched and pitiful bread
Standing behind the pole is a pole.
And the wire under the sky
Death sings and sings.

And clouds of gadflies around indifferent nags,
And the wind-swollen Kaluga native red salmon,
And the whistling of quails, and the big sky,
And waves of bells above waves of bread,
And talk about the German until you get tired of it,
And yellow-yellow - behind the blue grove - a cross,
And the sweet heat, and such a radiance all over,
And your name sounds like: angel.

Like a weak ray through the black darkness of hells -
So your voice is accompanied by the roar of exploding shells.

And in the thunder, like some seraphim,
Notifies in a deaf voice, -

From somewhere in the ancient foggy mornings -
How he loved us, blind and nameless,

For a blue cloak, for treachery - a sin...
And how tenderest of all is the one who is deepest of all

Into the night that has sunk - on to daring deeds!
And how I never stopped loving you, Russia.

And along the temple - with a lost finger
Everything drives, drives... And one more thing about

What days await us, how God will deceive us,
How will you call the sun - and how will it not rise...

So, a prisoner with yourself alone
(Or does the child talk in his sleep?)

It appeared to us - the entire wide area! -
Sacred heart of Alexander Blok.

Here he is - look - tired of foreign lands,
A leader without squads.

Here he drinks by the handful from the mountain rapids -
A prince without a country.

Everything is there for him: the principality and the army,
Both bread and mother.

Your heritage is red, own it,
Friend without friends!

You will remain a monk to us:
Pretty, darling,
Handwritten breviary,
A cypress casket.

To every single one of the women,
To them, to the swallows, to us, the married ones,
To us, the gold, those gray hairs,
Every single one of us is a son

You will remain, everyone’s firstborn,
Those who abandoned, rejected,
With our strange staff,
Our early wanderer.

To all of us with a short inscription
Cross at the Smolensk cemetery
Search, everyone's turn,
Everyone, ………, should not be trusted.

To everyone - a son, to everyone - an heir,
To everyone - the first, the last.

His friends - don't disturb him!
His servants - do not disturb him!
It was so clear on his face:
My kingdom is not of this world.

Prophetic blizzards circled along the veins,
The stooped shoulders bent from the wings,
Into the singing slot, into the caked dust -
The swan lost his soul!

Fall, fall, heavy copper!
The wings have tasted the right: to fly!
Lips screaming the word: answer! -
They know that this is not possible - to die!

The dawn drinks, the sea drinks - to the fullest
He's reveling. - Do not serve memorial services!
Who forever commanded: to be! -
There will be enough bread to feed him!

And above the plain -
Swan cry.
Mother, didn’t she recognize her son?
This is from the sky - he is miles away,
This last one - he - I'm sorry.

And above the plain -
Prophetic blizzard.
Virgo, did you really not recognize your friend?
Torn vestments, a wing covered in blood...
This is the last one: - Live!

Above the accursed -
The takeoff is illuminated.
The righteous man snatched his soul - hosanna!
The convict found a bed - it was warm.
Stepson to his mother's house. - Amen.

Not a broken rib -
Broken wing.

Not shooters right through
Chest shot. Don't take it out

This bullet. They don't repair the wings.
He walked around disfigured.

Tenacious, tenacious is the crown of thorns!
What is the trembling of the mob for the deceased,

Women's flattery is swan's down...
Passed by, alone and deaf,

Freezing sunsets
The emptiness of eyeless statues.

Only one thing still lived in it:
Broken wing.

Without a call, without a word, -
Like a roofer falling from the roofs.
Or maybe again
You came, are you lying in the cradle?

You burn and don’t fade,
A lamp of few weeks...
Which mortal
Rocking your cradle?

Blessed heaviness!
Prophetic songbird!
Oh, who will tell me
What cradle are you lying in?

“Not sold yet!”
Only with this jealousy in my mind
The Great Detour
I will walk on Russian soil.

Midnight countries
I'll go from end to end.
Where is the mouth-his-wound,
Eyes bluish lead?

Grab him! Tighter!
Love and love him only!
Oh, who whispers to me,
What cradle are you lying in?

pearl grains,
Sleepy muslin canopy.
Not with laurel, but with thorns -
Cap sharp-toothed shadow.

Not a canopy, but a bird
Opened two white wings!
- And be born again,
So that the snowstorm will sweep it away again?!

Rip it! Higher!
Hold! Just don't give it away!
Oh, who will breathe for me,
What cradle are you lying in?

Or maybe it's false
My feat, and my labors are for nothing.
As it was laid in the ground,
Perhaps you will sleep until the chimney.

Huge hollowness
I see your temples again.
Such fatigue -
You can't even lift it with a pipe!

Sovereign pasture,
Reliable, rusty silence.
The watchman will show me
Which cradle are you lying in?

Like sleepy, like drunk,
Taken by surprise, without preparing.
Temporal pits:
Sleepless conscience.

Empty eye sockets:
Dead and light.
Dreamer, all-seer
Empty glass.

Isn't it you
Her rustling robe
Couldn't stand it -
The reverse gorge of Hades?

Isn't it this one?
Full of silver ringing
Along the sleepy Gebra
Did your head swim?

Yes, Lord! And my obol
Accept it for approval of the temple.
Not your love arbitrariness
I sing the wound of my homeland.

Not a stingy rusty chest -
Granite, worn down by knees.
The hero and the king are given to everyone,
To everyone - the righteous - the singer - and the dead.

Breaking the ice along the Dnieper,
Grobov, not embarrassed by the plank,
Rus' - Easter is sailing to you,
Overflowing with a thousand voices.

So, heart, cry and praise!
Let your cry be a thousand? -
Mortal love is jealous.
The other one rejoices at the choir.

What else to read