My Sister Life and The Zhivago Poems

In Holy Week

✦ 111 ✦ In Holy Week All round still reigns the murk of night. The world is yet so young That stars unnumbered roam the sky, Each one of them as bright as day; And if it had its way, the earth Would sleep through all of Eastertide Beneath the chant of Psalms. All round still reigns the murk of night: So youthful is the world, That from the crossroad to the corner The square is like eternity, And to the light and warmth of dawn Still stretch a thousand years. The land lies bare and barren yet, Too naked in the nights To ring the air’s cathedral bells Or join the singing choirs. And then from Holy Thursday on, Until the Sabbath eve, The water gores the riverbanks And spins its eddies deep. And as the Passion comes to pass, The woods are shorn and bare, The trunks of pine trees stand en masse, Like worshippers at prayer. ✦ 112 ✦ And in the town, not far away, As if in congregation, The naked trees in silence gaze Inside the temple gratings. Their glance is seized with sudden dread. One comprehends their fear. The garden moves outside the fence, The earth’s foundation rears its head: Their God they bury here. They see the royal gates aglow, The pall of black, the candle row, The faces stained with tears— And then a great procession comes That bears a cross and shroud; Two birches that are standing near Make way before the crowd. And then the throng goes round the grounds, Along the pavement’s edge, And carries in from street to porch The spring and springtime’s chatter, And air that has a wafer’s taste, And spring’s consuming fever. And on the porch the month of March On crowds of cripples scatters snow, As though a man had come outside And brought the Ark and opened wide And gave each shred away. ✦ 113 ✦ The singing lasts until the dawn, And, having sobbed their fill, The Psalms and Acts flow on and on Until at last they softly spill On lamplit fallow fields. But man and beast at midnight hush, As spring puts out its rumor, That as the weather turns around, All deaths are overcome once more Through Resurrection’s labor. ...