Simple Life

Somewhere there is a simple life and a world, 

Transparent, warm and joyful. . .


There at evening a neighbor talks with a girl

Across the fence, and only the bees can hear 

This most tender murmuring of all.

But we live ceremoniously and with difficulty 

And we observe the rites of our bitter meetings, 

When suddenly the reckless wind

Breaks off a sentence just begun --

But not for anything would we exchange this splendid 

Granite city of fame and calamity, 

The wide rivers of glistening ice, 

The sunless, gloomy gardens,

And, barely audible, the Muse's voice.

~Anna Akhmatova
June 23, 1915, St. Petersburg

Translated by Judith Hemschemeyer

akhmatova - 1924

akhmatova - 1924, originally uploaded by levari.

Alexandrian Society - 6/23/07

The ancient Alexandrian Society every day played a game where in they convinced themselves that they were condemned to death in order to make their every day observations more poignant.

In their minds images appeared in the memory as vivid fragments: Their memories do not proceed in sequence but run after one another in a jolting wave, a stream of images - once forgotten eyes, someone's light blue dress, the voice of a passing stranger - because the concrete fragments carried the perception of imminent death, readers would associate them with important moments in their own lives...

Mikhail Kuzmin - "The Collected Poems of Anna Akhmatova"