“”Silence is the real crime against humanity.” – Nadezha Mandelstam

Two nights ago there was a lot of wind and rain. I do not remember that a storm was announced, but by the next morning trees and branches were all over the place, ripped out of the earth or from their trunks. I had to remind myself that nature is served by an occasional house cleaning, rather than thinking, man, it all comes crashing down.

And since language was on my mind, given this week’s focus, I was saddened by another kind of crash: apparently so many Native American Elders are felled by Covid-19, some the sole bearers of languages at the brink of extinction, that a true cultural crisis unfolds. The few who remember the languages, gone.

I decided that we need some real cheer to counterbalance the ominous thoughts. Something that reminds us that even in the middle of catastrophe or the ramp leading up to it, there are glimpses of hope. And courage. And love!

What better than a love poem written by Osip Mandelstam (1891- 1938) for his wife Nadezha, before Stalin managed to finish him off by sending him to a Siberian Labor Camp for his outspoken criticism of totalitarianism?

Nadezha Mandelstam (1899 – 1980) was an unusually strong person, who escaped Stalin’s henchmen by luck and led a quasi-nomadic existence for many years, crashing with friends, doing odds-and-ends jobs, learning her husband’s poems by heart so that they would be preserved, and smuggling copies of them out of the country. She was said to have had a Homeric memory that allowed her to memorize both original poems and some of their variants. Later she pushed for publication of his collected works, both in the West and later in Russia. Her own memoirs, Hope against Hope and Hope Abandoned (both finished in 1970) are a worthwhile read if you can stomach eyewitness testimony of the Stalinist purges.

She remembered his language, ensuring survival of some of Russia’s most important poetry of the 20th century. He was ripped from her side because of his relentless willingness to open his mouth. And yet she insisted: “Silence is the real crime against humanity.”

Let’s hear it for love.

This

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.

By Osip Mandelstam

Anyone “babbling” to me like this – I promise eternal devotion……

Music is by one of their contemporaries, Scriabin, in a smooth if theatrical rendition of his Fantasy #2. And here is Horowitz, with a different take on a different piece.

And since you’ve followed me through a week with long and complicated topics, here is a bonus bit of cheerful language (and genuine loving sentiment) from a few days ago:

If that doesn’t cheer you, what will?