Imitation of Akhmatova

Like a Lenten lament
Optina Pustyn's bells
Intone your name.

Along the boards
Of a dacha porch
Soft drum of the Easter rain.

All the Westerners
Have come clumsy
For a cup of your life-blood.

But it's a search in vain
For the lonely birch
Weeping in the Ladoga wood.