Some ancestor of mine – a violinist?

Some ancestor of mine

Some ancestor of mine was a violinist

and a thief into the bargain.

Does this explain my vagrant disposition

and hair that smells of the wind?

Dark, curly-haired, hooknosed, he is

the one who steals apricots

from the cart, using my hand. Yes,

he is responsible for my fate.

Admiring the ploughman at his labour,

he used to twirl a dog rose

in his lips. He was always unreliable

as a friend, but a tender lover.

Fond of his pipe, the moon, beads and all

the young women in the neighbourhood …

I think he may have also been a coward,

my yellow-eyed ancestor.

His soul was sold for a farthing,

so he did not walk at midnight

in the cemetery. He may have worn

a knife tucked in his boot.

Perhaps he pounced round corners

like a sinuous cat.

I wonder suddenly: did

he even play the violin?

I know nothing mattered to him

any more than last year’s snow.

That’s what he was like, my ancestor,

And that’s the kind of poet I am.

Marina Tsvetayeva, Poems, 1915

(translated by Elaine Feinstein)