The Elizabeth Bishop Blog

Вспять

The hawk's glacial prey

pens its last moments in this

weak calligraphy.

                                    13 January 2018

[For several years now, I have been writing anagram-haiku.  The title of this one is in Russian, meaning "Back." It is a honkadori, alluding to the last stanza of Mandelstam's poem "Век" --

И с бессмысленной улыбкой

Вспять глядишь, жесток и слаб,

Словно зверь, когда-то гибкий,

На следы своих же лап.

[And with a senseless smile

You look back, cruel and weak,

Like a once flexible animal,

At your own paw prints.]

"Hawk glacial prey" is an anagram of the third line of my little poem. I liked the way the word 'weak' connected Mandelstam's poem to Elizabeth Bishop's "Questions of Travel." -- and how her "The End of March," too, is distantly evoked.].