I Wrung My Hands
I wrung my hands under my dark veil. . . “Why are you pale, what makes you reckless?” Because I have made my loved one drunk With an astringent sadness. I’ll never forget. He
I Don't Know If You're Alive Or Dead
I don’t know if you’re alive or dead. Can you on earth be sought, Or only when the sunsets fade Be mourned serenely in my thought? All is for you: the daily prayer, The
Memory Of Sun
Memory of sun seeps from the heart. Grass grows yellower. Faintly if at all the early snowflakes Hover, hover. Water becoming ice is slowing in The narrow channels. Nothing at all will happen here
Willow
And I grew up in patterned tranquillity, In the cool nursery of the young century. And the voice of man was not dear to me, But the voice of the wind I could understand.
For Osip Mandelstam
And the town is frozen solid in a vice, Trees, walls, snow, beneath a glass. Over crystal, on slippery tracks of ice, The painted sleighs and I, together, pass. And over St Peter’s there
The Sentence
And the stone word fell On my still-living breast. Never mind, I was ready. I will manage somehow. Today I have so much to do: I must kill memory once and for all, I
In Memory of M. B
Here is my gift, not roses on your grave, Not sticks of burning incense. You lived aloof, maintaining to the end Your magnificent disdain. You drank wine, and told the wittiest jokes, And suffocated
Lying in me
Lying in me, as though it were a white Stone in the depths of a well, is one Memory that I cannot, will not, fight: It is happiness, and it is pain. Anyone looking
I Taught Myself To Live Simply
I taught myself to live simply and wisely, To look at the sky and pray to God, And to wander long before evening To tire my superfluous worries. When the burdocks rustle in the
Everything
Everything’s looted, betrayed and traded, Black death’s wing’s overhead. Everything’s eaten by hunger, unsated, So why does a light shine ahead? By day, a mysterious wood, near the town, Breathes out cherry, a cherry
Under Her Dark Veil
Under her dark veil she wrung her hands. “Why are you so pale today?” “Because I made him drink of stinging grief Until he got drunk on it. How can I forget? He staggered