Four Poems by Anne Frydman
Awakening from a nightmare, alone
Awakening from a nightmare, alone
Only the cats, hearing me groan
Lift their heads
Of men I have known I remember
Nothing: only as to the bed
Where the light shone
Peredelkino
Round cupolas and pieces of plowed earth
thick as black glass.
New dogs sleep by old gates,
sun on their paws, shadows
leave no mark.
One passing leaves no path.
Cupolas over a cemetery field.
A green hedge shines, a spring
spills over rocks,
turns clear, turns
aquamarine.
Wind shakes the pines to creaking.
Why does it take me longer
to believe what has begun.
A crow flies low and caws.
Let what can, grow.
Holding On
Time is going so fast
the sun's decline,
short and longer days,
shrugged like loose silk;
soon it will be spring,
I can discover squirrel damage
to garden bulbs.
What else? Earth and sky.
The return of birds. Holding on.
Wind
I have died, but you're still living.
And the wind, grieving and complaining,
Rocks the forest and the cottage.
Not by itself each lonely pine
But in entirety, all the trees
with all of the infinite distance;
Rocks, like the hulls of sailboats
Upon smooth waters.
All this the wind does, and not from wildness,
Nor rage, nor aimless fury,
But in order to fashion a lullaby
Out of its anguish, for you.
© 2005-2009 Per Contra: The International Journal of the Arts, Literature and Ideas