Russia

 

RUSSIA

Snow falls from deepest blue vaults,
Draping the sky, everything moves,
Like worlds shake across endless lands,
Fires rage and spit round calm hearths,
Then breath freezes, muffled hands numbed
Iced under sod across blue wastes,
Screams huddle from chinks of death cold,
And throw warm glass on burning coals

Hooded crows watching drifted fields,
Machines plough snow into black earth,
Maidens tread cross copses in green lust,
Their red pinafores streaming blood,
Bright and pristine in babushkas,
Atop long flowing dark rivers,
Mordant and pretty, like hot onion
Her eyes still, like glass, but worldly,
Worlds in her, deepest reaches betray,
Her slim waist sways to give me naught,
Ice packed upon ice, I fathom,
Mysteries ‘neath watery gloom