My Sister Life and The Zhivago Poems

Daybreak

✦ 145 ✦ Daybreak You were my very life and fate. Then came the war and all it spawned, And in that long, long time of hate All signs and sounds of you were gone. And now that many years have fled Your voice once more has moved my soul. All night your testament I read And woke once more, alive and whole. I’m drawn to people now, to crowds, To all their busy morning ways. I’m ready now to tear all shrouds, To make all people kneel in praise. And in a rush downstairs I go, As if I’ve never been outside, To walk these streets so white with snow, These pavements that had long since died. In cozy flats the people rise, Light lamps, drink tea, and race to trains; And soon enough before my eyes The city’s pulse and aspect change. Out of the thickly falling flakes The blizzard weaves its web of down, And leaving half their tea and cakes, All race to be on time in town. ✦ 146 ✦ And I can feel the things they’ve felt, As if I lived inside their skins; And like the melting snow I melt And frown, like dawn, as day begins. There walk with me the nameless ones, The stay-at-homes, the children, trees. By all of them I stand undone— My only victory rests in these. ...