THE DOG SLEEPS BEHIND CHECKERED CURTAINS Poem by Sirkka Turkka

The dog sleeps behind checkered curtains.
It sleeps its hundredth year already.
And the precious heart sleeps.
A dream no longer wakes it, nor omens, not
the forever-departed dead.
Perhaps I alone, only my memory.
But we are forgotten now, snow's meciful bell
has struck.
Winter rides above everything - its strange
bent-down woods, the empires of winter.
Only the snow laments and tolls, the storm cries:
for the precious heart
the concerto whole.