In The Terrible Years Of The Yezhov

Today I Have So Much To Do: I Must Kill Memory Once And For All, I Must Turn My Soul To Stone, I Must Learn To Live Again. Unless ... Summer's Ardent Rustling Is Like A Festival Outside My Window.

Sweet To Me Was Not The Voice Of Man, But The Wind's Voice Was Understood By Me. The Burdocks And The Nettles Fed My Soul, But I Loved The Silver Willow Best Of All.

And This Tenderness Was Not Like That Which A Certain Poet At The Beginning Of The Century Called True And, For Some Reason, Quiet. No, Not At All— It Rang Out, Like The First Waterfall, It Crunched Like The Crust Of Bluish Ice And It Prayed With A Swanlike Voice, And It Broke Down Right Before Our Eyes.

You Will Hear Thunder And Remember Me, And Think: She Wanted Storms.

We Aged A Hundred Years, And This Happened In A Single Hour: The Short Summer Had Already Died, The Body Of The Ploughed Plains Smoked.