It Is Unbearably Painful For The Soul

The Celebrations Of Secret Nonmeetings Are Empty, Unspoken Conversations, Unuttered Words. Glances That Don't Intersect Don't Know Where To Come To Rest. And Only The Tears Rejoice Because They Can Flow And Flow. Sweetbrier Around Moscow, Alas! Somehow It Is Here ... And All This They Will Call Love Eternal.

Hands, Matches, An Ashtray. A Ritual Beautiful And Bitter.

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

A Land Not Mine, Still Forever Memorable, The Waters Of Its Ocean Chill And Fresh. Sand On The Bottom Whiter Than Chalk, And The Air Drunk, Like Wine, Late Sun Lays Bare The Rosy Limbs Of The Pinetrees. Sunset In The Ethereal Waves: I Cannot Tell If The Day Is Ending, Or The World, Or If The Secret Of Secrets Is Inside Me Again.

In The Terrible Years Of The Yezhov Terror I Spent Seventeen Months Waiting In Line Outside The Prison In Leningrad. One Day Somebody In The Crowd Identified Me . . . And Asked Me In A Whisper . . . "can You Describe This?" And I Said: "i Can."