Flowers, cold from the dew, And autumn's approaching breath, I pluck for the warm, luxuriant braids, Which haven't faded yet. In their nights, fragrantly resinous, Entwined with delightful mystery, They will breathe in her springlike Extraordinary beauty. But in a whirlwind of sound and fire, From her shing head they will flutter And fall—and before her They will die, faintly fragrant still. And, impelled by faithful longing, My obedient gaze will feast upon them— With a reverent hand, Love will gather their rotting remains.

Real tenderness can't be confused, It's quiet and can't be heard.

During the terrible years of the Yekhov terror I spent seventeen months in the prison queues in Leningrad. One day someone ‘identified’ me. Then a woman with lips blue with cold who was standing behind me, and of course had never heard of my name, came out of the numbness which affected us all and whispered in my ear—(we all spoke in whispers there): ‘Could you describe this?’ I said, ‘I can!’ Then something resembling a smile slipped over what had once been her face.

No, not under the vault of another sky, not under the shelter of other wings. I was with my people then, there where my people were doomed to be.

Rising from the past, my shadow Is running in silence to meet me.

Hands, matches, an ashtray. A ritual beautiful and bitter.

A choir of angels glorified the hour, the vault of heaven was dissolved in fire. "Father, why hast Thou forsaken me? Mother, I beg you, do not weep for me.