My Sister Life and The Zhivago Poems

Explanation

✦ 118 ✦ Explanation Life has returned with just as little reason As once before it strangely lost its power. I’m walking down the selfsame ancient street As once before, that summer day and hour. The people are the same, their cares the same, And sunset’s conflagration has not cooled Since long ago that night of death appeared And nailed it quickly to the Manège wall. The women in their everyday cheap dresses Still clatter down the avenues by night, And later, in the dark, on garret iron, They still in attic rooms are crucified. And now one woman with a weary step Comes slowly to the threshold to depart And, climbing from the semi-basement depths, She takes an angled path across the yard. And now I ready some excuse once more, And once again my feelings turn to stone, And once again the woman from next door Goes round the alley, leaving us alone. ✦ 119 ✦ Don’t cry, don’t pucker swollen lips, Don’t gather them in creases, You’ll irritate the crusted scab That came from your spring fever. And take your hand off of my chest, We’re cables of high tension. Look out, for chance may yet again Throw you and me together. The years will pass, you’ll marry then And won’t recall this wayward time. To be a woman is a great event, To drive men mad—sublime. And I shall reverence, all my days, With limitless devotion The miracle of woman’s hands, Her neck, and back, and shoulders. No matter, though, how night may forge A ring of grief to hold me fast, The earth incites a stronger urge, The passion for the break at last. ...