I have enough treasures from the past <br />to last me longer than I need, or want. <br />You know as well as I . . . malevolent memory <br />won't let go of half of them: <br />a modest church, with its gold cupola <br />slightly askew; a harsh chorus <br />of crows; the whistle of a train; <br />a birch tree haggard in a field <br />as if it had just been sprung from jail; <br />a secret midnight conclave <br />of monumental Bible-oaks; <br />and a tiny rowboat that comes drifting out <br />of somebody's dreams, slowly foundering. <br />Winter has already loitered here, <br />lightly powdering these fields, <br />casting an impenetrable haze <br />that fills the world as far as the horizon. <br />I used to think that after we are gone <br />there's nothing, simply nothing at all. <br />Then who's that wandering by the porch <br />again and calling us by name? <br />Whose face is pressed against the frosted pane? <br />What hand out there is waving like a branch? <br />By way of reply, in that cobwebbed corner <br />a sunstruck tatter dances in the mirror.<br /><br />Anna Akhmatova<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/march-elegy/
