Ballad 8 Poem by Ahmad Shiddiqi

swaying toward Kizhi Pogost in a soft surprise
of faith and hope, the angelic atmospheres
had filled with Chrysophrase-bloom and Freesia scent
those welcoming words, her failing accent

one seamless robe, her beauty spirit waits
on John Constable’s white anthem fights
for the silent saints who from their labors rest
her longing, beloved Besançon, pacing west

however to grief she grant her natural throes
and by their open bay amid the snows
of Paradise, thy tourmaline-crusted veils, thy go
must her precious life be nobler than a year ago

take her this Skocjan Caves of the living rock
and sculpture sisterhood from the savage block
strikes down those dusky carnivals to that marvelous gloom
of Chalcedony Splendor, and the Love in home