MEMORY OF AKHMATOVA
(1889 -1966)

Past a discerning memory

of Anna Akhmatova
reading her poetry notes
with dim eyes over
the warm stove
and curved mirror

turning a white headband
on a courageous life
we witness to your laurels
as you press in your quotes
from your astonishing passages
on a lost lover and husband
with a warm quarrel of regrets
at the turn of a century
at lucid secrets emerge
at the miracle spin of her survival
calling out all of Stalin's criminals
as trembling whispers
of passing voices rival
in her paucity of letters
she does not yet send by mail,
for Akhmatova's nature expands
reaching us after death exhales
in knowing our time better
when on a winter pilgrimage
to greet Osip Mandelstam,
an exiled friend,
camped out with luggage
along the dark Russian river
who sailed away in exile
who shares another language,
in a passing visit over kvas
and a sparkling glass
of herbal mint tea,
it is snowing for the poets
with the snowy wind covering
her brown coat and bandana
by a smile then laughter
at the mouth of the cold Neva
everyone is awaiting saplings
planted under a bridge's beach
near fathomless shadowy
reaching branches of a knout
and blackened whip
when birch twigs will bend
in a coming deliverance
from the long fathomless thaw
for a Russian wintry penance
as children shout their warring
yet loving confessions of love
in a thousand wonders
of an Easter nascent rain
as you hear the priest's language
in purple procession and song
everyone wondering
at the spring's arrival
as this everlasting poet
covers over her tense glances
and she reaches out on the sand
to us in benevolence
from an age without end.