I was washing at night out in the yard

By Osip Mandelstam

I was washing at night out in the yard—

the heavens glowing with rough stars.

A star-beam like salt upon an axe,

the water barrel brimful and cold.

A padlock makes the gate secure,

and conscience gives sternness to the earth—

hard to find a standard anywhere

purer than the truth of new-made cloth.

A star melts in the barrel like salt,

and the ice-cold winter is blacker still,

death is more pure, disaster saltier

and earth more truthful and more terrible.

''I was washing at night out in the yard'' by Osip Mandelstam, translated by Peter France, from Black Earth, translation copyright © 2021 by Peter France. Compilation copyright © 2021 by New Directions Publishing. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.

Source: Black Earth (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 2021)