The hundredth year since Marina Tsvetaeva wrote the poem “Dis-tance: Versts and Miles…” is now upon us, and it’s been two years since the date that di-vided time and space in all conceivable and inconceivable meanings and embodiments of these words.

It is well known when and under what circumstances this text was written, and to whom it was dedicated. And it seems that the thought of Philippe Jaccottet: “Dreams and poems cannot be reduced to what secretly nourishes them, and what they hide and transform, intentionally or not” doesn't apply to this poem. But Tsvetaeva's “us,” very personal, specific, expands in its scope and now relates to each and every one of us.

Reading the poem is terrifying — each verb, with its expressiveness, semantics, its allusions, resonates in the heart, and long chains of tragic associations build up in the mind: dis-placed…, feuded… (with relatives, friends, colleagues), scattered…, dis-persed… (who’s where now?), de-layered…

In these recurring, pervasive prefixes, both physical and spiritual separation is concentrated — “Stretched out, un-destroyed, / Unaware that we're alloy / Of spirit and sinew…” And — like a dagger to the heart — the final blow:

“They broke us up — like a deck of cards!”

Did they really break us up?

I. S.