They kneel in water that once was their streets,
hands, like small boats, lifting the broken
pieces of each other—what is left
of their homes sway in the wind’s aftermath.
But in the hollows of their ribs,
compassion flows, fingers reaching out,
the strangers have come as if drawn
by some invisible thread of the heart.
A woman holds a child not her own,
and in the grocery lines,
men share silence as a form of prayer.
The sea still seethes in their veins,
but they have become each other’s islands,
speaking in gestures,
their empathy moving through the ruin,
like light on a broken mirror.
Toksovo is the place near Saint-Petersburg, Russia
When the Luminary was in the sunset,
On the hill top, in summer, in the old house,
We were drinking usually evening tea -
I was a guest on that large veranda.
We were sitting at the table, talking quietly,
With friendly feelings in the hearts,
The lake beneath and nature gave the double kindness -
The place of Toksovo was blessed for us.
© Poetic Velocity, 2019 (collection of poems on amason.com)
WINTER’S XANADU
Boreal Venice with canals of ice
Built on frozen rock and sand
Of the Pleasure Dome, we have a slice.
Spires of gilt and bridges a thousand
City of gold from Russia’s Kubla
Not on sacred River Alph
Peter’s Xanadu on the Neva *
Porcelain city pictured on delph
Sunny rooftops with icy necklaces
Fragile, hidden in the mind’s imagination
Fairy land of winter palaces
Snow-dusted dome’s reincarnation
Chosen like Alph in olden days
Frozen like delph in golden glaze
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
NOTE
Saint Petersburg, Russia, is a combination of Venice’s canals
and the fabulous buildings of Samarkand and Asia, more breathtaking
than Paris, more cultured than Florence.
*Many references in the poem are from Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan”.
Instead of the sacred River Alph, SPB is on the River Neva, and the city
was conceived by Peter the Great.
NEGLECTED BEAUTY
Beauty-mica granite sidewalks shining
Fontanka and Moika Canals like Venice boreal
Boats flopping, tourist cameras aligning
Gold-domed architecture monumental
Kazan cathedral needing facelift, declining
Notes :
(SPB = Saint Petersburg, Russia )
Almost all sidewalks in SPB are granite
There are many canals in SPB, and these two are more famous than others
Kazan is only one of several lovely cathedrals in SPB
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