The Poetry Stash: 02Mar2024

"I bless our hands' daily labor" by Marina Tsvetaeva

Today’s poem is “I bless our hands’ daily labor” by Marina Tsvetaeva from the collection Dark Elderberry Branch: Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva, trans. by Ilya Kaminsky and Jean Valentine. The book is available for purchase here.

I bless our hands’ daily labor by Marina Tsvetaeva

I bless our hands’ daily labor, bless
sleep every night.
Bless night, every night.

And the coat, your coat, my coat,
half dust, half holes.
And I bless the peace

in a stranger’s house—the bread in a stranger’s oven.

Prompts:

1.	Begin with “our hands’ daily…”
2.	Begin with “a stranger’s …”
3.	Draft a blessing.
4.	Draft a poem from the perspective of someone who lives in exile from their home country or from the perspective of a “stranger” who lives in a country where immigrants have taken refuge. .

5. Photo by Saliha Sevim. Use image as a writing prompt.

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