You walk, looking just like me

[Ilya Shambat]

You walk, looking just like me,
Lowering your eyes.
I lowered them also!
Stop, passerby!

Read - having gathered a bouquet
Of many flowers -
That my name was Marina
And how old I was.

Don't think I'll appear with menace,
That a grave here is hidden..
I loved to laugh too much
When it was forbidden.

And blood to the skin was rushing,
And twisted, the curls of my hair..
I once was too, passerby!
Passerby, stop and stare!

Tear off for yourself a wild stem
And thereafter a berry:
There are no strawberries sweeter
Or bigger than at cemetery.

But only don't grimly stand there,
On the chest lowering your head.
Lightly about me remember,
Lightly about me forget.

How the ray alights you!
You're in golden dust dressed..
And at my voice from below
Do not you be distressed.

By Marina Tsvetayeva
Translated from Russian by Ilya Shambat