Requiem for Elvira Shatayev (Response Poem)

January 29, 2014

PHANTASIA FOR ELVIRA SHATAYEV, by Adrienne Rich

(leader of a women’s climbing team, all of whom died in a

storm on Lenin Peak, August 1974. Later, Shatayev’s

husband found and buried the bodies.)

The cold felt cold until our blood

grew colder      then the wind

died down and we slept

If in this sleep I speak

it’s with a voice no longer personal

(I want to say      with voices)

When the wind tore      our breath from us at last

we had no need of words

For months      for years      each one of us

had felt her own yes      growing in her

slowly forming      as she stood at windows      waited

for trains      mended her rucksack      combed her hair

What we were to learn      was simply      what we had

up here      as out of all words      that yes      gathered

its forces      fused itself      and only just in time

to meet a No of no degrees

the black hole      sucking the world in

I feel you climbing toward me

your cleated bootsoles leaving      their geometric bite

colossally embossed      on microscopic crystals

as when I trailed you in the Caucasus

Now I am further

ahead      than either of us dreamed      anyone would be

I have become

the white snow packed like asphalt by the wind

the women I love      lightly flung      against the mountain

that blue sky

our frozen eyes unribboned      through the storm

we could have stitched that blueness      together      like a quilt

You come (I know this)      with your love      your loss

strapped to your body      with your tape-recorder      camera

ice pick      against advisement

to give us burial in the snow      and in your mind

While my body lies out here

flashing like a prism      into your eyes

how could you sleep      You climbed here for yourself

we climbed for ourselves

When you have buried us      told your story

ours does not end      we stream

into the unfinished      the unbegun

the possible

Every cell’s core of heat      pulsed out of us

into the thin air      of the universe

the armature of rock beneath these snows

this mountain      which has taken     the imprint of our minds

through changes elemental and minute

as those we underwent

to bring each other here

choosing ourselves      each other      and this life

whose every breath      and grasp      and further foothold

is somewhere      still enacted      and continuing

In the diary I wrote: Now we are ready

and each of us knows it      I have never loved

like this      I have never seen

my own forces so taken up and shared

and given back

After the long training      the early sieges

we are moving almost effortlessly in our love

In the diary as the wind      began to tear

all the tents over us      I wrote:

We know now we have always been in danger

down in our separateness

and now up here together      but till now

we had not touched our strength

In the diary torn from my fingers I had written:

What does love mean

what does it mean      “to survive”

A cable blue fire ropes our bodies

burning together in the snow      We will not live

to settle for less      We have dreamed of this

all of our lives

REQUIEM FOR ELVIRA SHATAYEV

I undertake your challenge

for the final time     although they told me not to

I shift the pack I carry

filled     with my love     my loss

my ice-pick      and I cannot tell if I climb for myself

or for you

As I climb I hear      the mountain’s whispered singing

but cannot interpret the secret language

I hear      in my head your voice      as if

in a diary you might have kept: but till now

we had not touched our strength

and I wonder      as I have always wondered      why this strength

had to be so separate      from mine

The others consoled me      for my loss

but I had lost your love to the mountain      years ago

and yet       I loved that love of yours      I understood

you had the cold      to fight against

as I had you      to fight for

Perhaps now I will find      another woman      a softer woman

one not so mountain-hard

to ebb away      at my own cold

but perhaps     it will not be the same      as watching when

you hung out the wash      picked your onions

fed your chickens      the daylight      shining in your eyes

As I approach the peak      my heart drops

from knowing      what it has known all along      Oh

My dear      Oh my heart      Forgive

the way it ended

I find you      and the others      sleeping

half-crystalized      your hair in icy ribbons

all faces resting      turned skyward as if enthralled

by the clear      cold      blueness

For hours I thrash      against dense ice

to chisel some sort of honor

into this death      something to last      against this loss

I bury you      one      after another

Now you are further

below      than either of us dreamed      anyone would be

You have become

the white snow feathered like down in a quilt

And once you are gone

I cannot feel you here             as you

once      felt yourself      Now

you must be elsewhere

or      at last      inseparable