My Sister Life and The Zhivago Poems

The End

✦ 104 ✦ The End Is anything real? Is it time for a walk? Better to sleep, forever to sleep, And not to see dreams. The street once again. Lace curtains again. Again every night—the steppe, rick, moan. Both now and ahead. In August the leaves, each asthma-choked atom, Dream silence and dark. A dog running loose Awakens the yard. It waits for the calm. A giant appears from the dusk . . . Another . . . then steps. “There’s a latch.” A whistle: tout beau! It literally drenched, bombarded the road . . . With our steps! Even the fence Was writhing with you. Autumn. Yellow-gray beads stretched on a string. Like you, decay, I’m ready for death, So weary of life! Night is too late with its luring maneuvers Of incense of trains; each leaf in the rain Tears loose for the steppe. The windows make scenes. How pointless it is! Kissing her elbows of ice, the door Tears loose from its hinge. ✦ 105 ✦ Acquaint me with one who was nurtured, as they, By the labors of southern fields, Of wastelands and rye. But this bitter taste, this stupefied heart, these lumps In the throat, the anguish of words. . . . One longs for an end. ...