Seven Strophes

I was but what you'd brush

with your palm, what your leaning

brow would hunch to in evening's

raven-black hush.

I was but what your gaze

in that dark could distinguish:

a dim shape to begin with,

later – features, a face.

It was you, on my right,

on my left, with your heated

sighs, who molded my helix,

whispering at my side.

It was you by that black

window's trembling tulle pattern

who laid in my raw cavern

a voice calling you back.

I was practically blind.

You, appearing, then hiding,

gave me my sight and heightened

it. Thus some leave behind

a trace. Thus they make worlds.

Thus, having done so, at random

wastefully they abandon

their work to its whirls.

Thus, prey to speeds

of light, heat, cold, or darkness,

a sphere in space without markers

spins and spins.

-Joseph Brodsky

 A strophe is defined as "The first of a pair of stanzas of alternating form on which the structure of a given poem is based." (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Strophes). The title is "Seven Strophes" because there are seven strophes in this poem. Whenever Brodsky starts off a line with "I was", "It was", or "thus", he is actually breaking into another strophe. The content of the poem seems to have dark imagery, but a positive message. Brodsky tells of his relationship with another person, and how they illuminated certain parts of his life, and helped construct his own character. The poem seems to start by describing the initial time where he Brodsky met the person the poem is addressing, and the importance of that person grows throughout the poem. This poem is translated from Russian, and I don't know how well the translation carries over.