I think I can call on words <br /> <br />that will last: you are there. <br /> <br />But if I can’t, no matter – <br /> <br />I’ll persist, I won’t care. <br /> <br /> <br />I hear the muttering of wet roofs, <br /> <br />pale eclogues from stones and kerb. <br /> <br />From the opening lines, that city, <br /> <br />is alive in each sound, each word. <br /> <br /> <br />You can’t leave town though it’s spring, <br /> <br />and your customers won’t wait. <br /> <br />Dawn glows, by lamplight sewing <br /> <br />with unbowed back, eyes wet. <br /> <br /> <br />Breathing the calm of far-off Ladoga, <br /> <br />stumbling towards the water. <br /> <br />There’s no relief from such trips. <br /> <br />The shallows smell mustier, darker. <br /> <br /> <br />The wind dances, it’s a walnut shell, <br /> <br />a glitter, the warm wind blows <br /> <br />branches and stars, lights, and views, <br /> <br />as the seamstress watches the flow. <br /> <br /> <br />Eyesight can be sharp, differently, <br /> <br />form be precise in varying ways, <br /> <br />but a solvent of acid power’s <br /> <br />out there under the white night’s blaze. <br /> <br /> <br />That’s how I see your face and look. <br /> <br />Not that pillar of salt, in mind, <br /> <br />in which five years ago you fixed <br /> <br />our fears of looking behind. <br /> <br /> <br />From your first verses where grains <br /> <br />of clear speech hardened, to the last, <br /> <br />your eye, the spark that shakes the wire, <br /> <br />makes all things quiver with the past.<br /><br />Boris Pasternak<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-anna-akhmatova-2/
