Wrapped in a Russian army cloak <br />and the coarse cheesecloth <br />of legend, I fell in love <br />with the onion domes <br />of the old walled city, <br />with Peter’s ice-spun dream <br />at a northern window. Far <br />Baikal drowned my dreamless nights. <br />The Slavic cheekbones of the Ukraine, <br />the scarlet manes of the viking Rus, <br />fire and blood and the dragon prows <br />ran through my kindred. <br /> <br />That no doubt was why <br />shattered light through the birch trees, <br />sun glinting off the snowed-flat pines, <br />filled my eyes with a lacquered vision: <br />Russia contained in a glass of tea <br />deep as Lake Baikal, cold as the Volga.<br /><br />Kathleen Griffin<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-rule-of-names/
