An Invocation Poem by Gert Strydom

(to Minette after Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin)

To you I call to have you once more near,
during the silent hour of the midnight,
to come and walk with me in the moonlight,
I call you on your name to now appear:

for your form and design I do not fear,
it does not matter if you are radiant-bright,
or come here as a ghastly kind of sight,
I call on your cherished name to hear:

not to smite enemies who do deserve it,
or malice or anger of any kind,
nor the secrets beyond this sphere to know.
In this place, world and life I do not fit,
while your love remains in my heart and mind,
appear and do love and goodwill bestow.

[Reference: 'An invocation' by Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin


Poet's notes: There are rites that go along with an invocation that makes it come into effect, as well as calling on a higher power or life-form for aid which I do not mention here. These words hold no danger or design or threat to any person and I am writing them only as a reminder to myself of a girl who did truly love me but is now not living anymore.

I am quoting the poem of Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin here:


'An invocation' by Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin

'O if it's true that in the night,
When rest the living in their havens
And liquid rays of lunar light
Glide down on tombstones from the heavens,
O if it's true that still and bare
Are then the graves until aurora --
I call the shade, I wait for Laura:
To me, my friend, appear, appear! '

'Beloved shadow, come to me
As at our parting -- wintry, ashen
In your last minutes' agony;
Emerge in any form or fashion:
A distant star across the sphere,
A gentle sound, a puff of air or
The most appalling wraith of terror,
I care not how: appear, appear! ..'

'I call you -- not to speak my scorn
Of people whose ill-fated malice
Has killed my friend, and not to learn
The secrets of the nether-palace,
And not because a doubt may tear
My heart at times... but as I suffer,
I want to say that still I love her,
That still I'm yours: appear, appear! ']
© Gert Strydom