Don’t Tell A Soul by Osip Mandelstam

Don’t tell a soul.
Forget all you’ve seen—
A bird, an old woman, a jail,
Everything...

Or else when you open your mouth
At break of day
You’ll tremble 
Like the needles on a pine tree.

You’ll remember the wasp at the cottage,
Your first pencil case,
Or the berries in the woods,
The ones you never picked.  

~ from Truth and Lies, An Anthology, edited by
Patrice Vecchione (Henry Holt and Company, 2001)