O.M.
And the two is frozen solid, leaden with
ice.
Trees, walls, snow, seem to be under glass.
Cautiously I tread on crystals.
The painted sleighs can’t get a grip
And over the statue of Peter-in-Voronezh
Are crows, and poplars, and a pale-green
dome
Washed-out and
muddy in the sun-motes.
The mighty slopes of the Field of Kulikovo
Tremble still with the slaughter of
barbarians.
And all at once the poplars, like lifted
chalices,
Enmesh more boisterously overhead
Like thousands of wedding-guests feasting
And drinking toasts to our happiness.
And in the room of the banished poet
Fear and the Muse take turns at watch,
And the night comes
When there will be no sunrise.
Anna Akhmatova
(Muse, 1936)