SEPTEMBER SUNSET OVER ST. PETERSBURG
Final fling of color and movement from the sun
Celebration of life before it’s done.
Bits and pieces of beauty criss-crossed
And all is higgledy, but still filled and tossed -
Like a rainbow salad mixed up in the sky’s bowl
With colored stripes of beauty - and spread over the oval
Nodding orange behind the Cathedral of St. Isaac,
Against the blue bowl looming black.
The leading edges of each higgle glow golder
As the trailing edges dim, darker, older :
And the orange juice spreads behind the museum
Then pours between the storefronts, turning them
To Gideon’s shields, momentarily flaring bright
To hide the departure of the citrus orb to the night.
The higgledy darkens, slowly bruising
Into purple streaks, westward flooding and oozing.
As the day dies unmourned,
The western sky is unadorned.
.............................................................
Written by Sydney Peck
2 August 2013
ST. PETERSBURG IN JANUARY
Frozen stillness of canals:
Venice in aspic.
Golden-domed church......
Heaven’s bulbs auric.
Palaces everywhere -
History majestic.
In June in the St.Petersburg the «White Night» is the all-night twilight because
the sun is only 8 or 10 degrees below the horizon in the middle of the night. The
sky doesn’t get at all dark.
During of it all city is very beautiful and mysterious.
Lilac, lilac, lilac!
Shadows of forgotten days,
Heroes of ancient legends
And simple fairy tales
are walking along the fine Nevsky Prospekt.
Day celebrates a wedding
He marries today!
White Night will be his wife,
Day is cheerful, generous and drunk.
A narrow silhouette of the river Fontanka,
And gentle embrace
Of lacy gates above her.
Do you see?
Everywhere are flying
The colour dreams,
And Day has thrown his clothes
To the feet of White Night.
Wedding has ended.
And White Night is
already the wife.
The memoirs about many famous people
Are sitting on the benches
Near sculptures in the Summer Garden.
Fine music is playing,
And Alexander Block
Enters into the city.
Ah, what beauty around!
This day began deliberately.
Even the sky and river Neva have a same a blue colour.
Between them domes fly,
and a thin steeple rises
with a little gold ship at the top.
In the Smolny Cathedral,
the bells whisper.
On the Gulf, calm and silence prevails.
I see unearthly beauty
in the lacy lattices of fencings;
lanterns guard bridges for you,
my St. Petersburg-Leningrad!
Here, palaces have stretched wings.
Here are fountains, as if a mirage.
The architects and masters
of the different countries and epochs
have constructed the Hermitage
next to the Neva.
Delightful cathedrals,
and the most elegant Summer Garden.
This proud facade of city is the fruit of a talent,
the tears and the loving of them.
Stone lions and sphinxes sit observing the Neva.
They look mysterious, even strict,
as if they store secrets and the past of my city
in these restless, difficult days.
I see Nevsky Prospekt in flood of lights,
and the Summer Garden - the SILENCE lives there!
I see for a window of my love and memory
So many different, beautiful days!
How lovely night St. Petersburg!
Nevsky Prospekt Is still
one from the most beautiful views in the world,
With his color fires.
Through 300 years,
Through many, many days.
The silhouettes of bridges
And ancient lanterns still – are fine!
Here the charming old lattice keeps
Old Summer Garden near the river Neva,
Here among ancient lindens
Marble sculptures talk with each other.
In the lake are two white swans
They are the bewitched Prince and Princess.
And the moon has looked at all this beauty
more than 300 years.
The night in St. Petersburg.
In windows of fine houses
Silent waltz in the nights
And the shadows of gentlemen and ladies
Who lived here some time are dancing here.
Nevsky Prospekt,
Have good luck always!
Give us your fires, love and charm again,
Ah, How lovely you are,
my night-time St. Petersburg!
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