Mother

Truth lies leaden on this land
How can we expect forty million hands
To forgive, to forget?

Still, Levitan swept his dreams south,
Eternal Nishny to Astrakhan
A beguiling serenity

When Russia's Gethsemane
Tensed every leaf for the final betrayal.
Blood sullied cupolas,

Jack-boot march of the maverick murderer.
The Volga's soiled tongue,
Sick inside its acidity

Disgorged and twisted
From blanket bones, cast off
The clammy mantle of woe.

For time's spiral has turned again
Vespers sung at the kremlin gates,
Icons hung for he who must come.

Every century
Has rinsed its sorrow
In the blue scoop of the Baikal.

And beyond the Yenesei
The snow geese stream,
Weight of the closing day.