Now No One Will Listen

I Know Beginnings, I Know Endings Too, And Life-in-death, And Something Else I'd Rather Not Recall Just Now.

In The Terrible Years Of The Yezhov Terror I Spent Seventeen Months Waiting In Line Outside The Prison In Leningrad. One Day Somebody In The Crowd Identified Me . . . And Asked Me In A Whisper . . . "can You Describe This?" And I Said: "i Can."

I Should Be Proud To Have My Memory Graced, But Only If The Monument Be Placed... Here, Where I Endured Three Hundred Hours In Line Before The Implacable Iron Bars.

The Word Landed With A Stony Thud Onto My Still-beating Breast. Nevermind, I Was Prepared, I Will Manage With The Rest. I Have A Lot Of Work To Do Today; I Need To Slaughter Memory, Turn My Living Soul To Stone Then Teach Myself To Live Again. . . But How. The Hot Summer Rustles Like A Carnival Outside My Window; I Have Long Had This Premonition Of A Bright Day And A Deserted House.

Courage: Great Russian Word, Fit For The Songs Of Our Children's Children, Pure On Their Tongues, And Free.