I raise this green to my lips,
this muddy promise of leaves,
this forsworn earth,
mother of snowdrops and of every tree.
See how I'm blinded but strengthened,
surrendering to the least of the roots?
Are my eyes not blown out
by the exploding trees?
The little frogs are rolled up in their voices,
drops of mercury, huddled in a ball.
The twigs are turning into branches, and the fallow ground
is a mirage of milk.

Osip Mandelstam's "I raise this green to my lips ..." from "The Selected Poems of Osip Mandelstam," translated by Clarence Brown and W.S. Merwin. New York Review of Books. Translation copyright 1973 by Clarence Brown and W.S. Merwin