How many times must the NKVD knock
on the door? Snap to attention, boot heels
clicking, the brass knuckles of their belts glint
on the polished oak floor? The china quivers,
safely behind the locked glass doors of the cabinet.
The curtains flap, limp, ashen before the brass
storm lamp. Wicker chairs crackle.
Gumilev stands, straight arrow shoot, breasting
the Guns. A moth flickers. The heart beats tight,
chainball skipping. The room’s temper shades.
Handcuffs click. Pallid faced, Gumilev - his
night shirt fierce red - is marble. He walks out.
Little Lev clutched your posted leg, solid
the ground unyielding. One small fist,
balled, his eyes - dark saucers – fill, to the brim.
But no tear falls. You blanch - silent, witless
witness to the brute, the ritual. Terror is sacrifice.
They took Lev out. They Shot him.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
what can I possibly say to revere the quality of poems about the great Russian poets under Stalin that breathe like a resurrection of those terrible events almost in the very syllables of their stricken hearts. Nothing to add to them. Just a prayer that the person writing poems like these can live to be 200 and write eveyrthing in her heart and never stop and publish everything unto immortality. Mary Angela Douglas