Mary Jane White: “A Late Reply” by Anna Akhmatova
Invisible one, my double, my mockingbird,
Who hides herself in the black bushes,
Who loses herself in a bedraggled starling,
Who gleams in lost crosses,
Who cries out for Marinkiny tower:
—Today I am come home, so
Distract me, my native fields,
From all that has happened to me,
The abyss that swallowed my loved ones,
My father’s home—plundered.
Today, you and I, Marina,
Walk the capital at midnight,
And after us, so many millions,
And no procession is more silent than this,
And all around us the funeral bells,
The wild moans of Moscow’s
Blizzards, filling our traces with snow.
.
for Marina Tsvetaeva, ca, 1940
Copyright Mary Jane White. From Starry Sky to Starry Sky by Mary Jane White (Holy Cow Press, 1988)
Anna Andreyevna Gorenko (1889 – 1966), better known by the pen name Anna Akhmatova, was one of the most significant Russian poets of the 20th century.
Mary Jane White’s new collection Dragonfly. Toad. Moon will appear in April 2022 from Press 53.
Vox Populi 
Sol lovely! Gives me hope that art can save the world.
Thankyou
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