This is what I most want unpursued, alone to reach beyond the light that I am furthest from.

And for you to shine there- no other happiness- and learn, from starlight, what its fire might suggest.

A star burns as a star, light becomes light, because our murmuring strengthens us, and warms the night.

And I want to say to you my little one, whispering, I can only lift you towards the light by means of this babbling.

Note: When I absolutely need to speak to myself (and perhaps with the hope that these murmurings will reach the other) words of consolation, I turn to this man, Osip, who was fully alive to "the flame in the blood". The knowledge about his brutal death, on reading his brief poetic biography in "The Selected Poems of Osip Mandelstam" (translations by W.S. Merwin and Clarence Brown) made me write a kaddish for him, that evening as I walked out of that bookstore, my hands shaking. This I want to say to you, my little one...