It's with your laughing picture that I'm living now, <br />You whose wrists are so slender and crackle at the joints, <br />You who wring your hands yet are unwilling to go, <br />You whose guests stay for hours sharing sadness and joys. <br /> <br />You who'll run from the cards and Rakoczy bravura, <br />From the glass of the drawing-room and from the guests <br />To the keyboard on fire, unable to endure <br />Bones and roses and dice and rosettes and the rest. <br /> <br />You will fluff up your hair, and a reckless tea-rose, <br />Smelling of cigarettes, pin to your bright-red sash, <br />And then waltz to your glory, your sadness and woes <br />Tossing off like a scarf, beaming, breathless and flushed. <br /> <br />You will crumple the skin of an orange and swallow <br />Cooling morsels again and again in your haste <br />To return to the hall, to the whirling and mellow <br />Lights, and air with the sweet sweat of fresh waltzes laced. <br /> <br />Defying steam and scorching breath <br />The way a whirlwind dies, <br />The way a murid faces death <br />With wide unflinching eyes. <br /> <br />Know all: not mountains' noise and hush, <br />And not a purebred steed- <br />The reckless roses in your sash <br />Are riding at full speed. <br /> <br />No, not the clatter of the hoofs <br />And not the mountains' hush, <br />But only she who stands aloof <br />With flowers in her sash. <br /> <br />And only that is really It <br />What makes our ears ring, <br />And what the whirlwind-chasing feet, <br />Soul, tulle and silk sash bring. <br /> <br />Until sides split the jokes are cracked, <br />We're rolling in the aisles, <br />The envy of the romping sacks- <br />Until somebody cries.<br /><br />Boris Pasternak<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/your-picture-6/
