For a Russian Poet by Adrienne Rich Lyrics
1. *The Winter Dream*
Everywhere, snow is falling. Your bandaged foot
drags across huge cobblestones, bells
hammer in distant squares.
Everything we stood against has conquered
and now we're part
of it all. *Life's the main thing*, I hear you say,
but a fog is spreading between this landmass
and the one your voice
mapped for so long for me. All that's visible
is walls, endlessly yellow-grey, where
so many risks were taken, the shredded skies
slowly littering both our continents with
the only justice left, burying
footprints, bells and voices with all deliberate speed.
(1967)
2. *Summer in the Country*
Now, again, every year for years: the life-and-death talk
late August, forebodings
under the birches, along the water's edge
and between the typed lines
and evenings, tracing a pattern of absurd hopes
in broken nutshells
but this year we both
sit after dark with the radio
unable to read, unable to write
trying the blurred edges of broadcasts
for a little truth, taking a walk before bed
wondering what a man can do, asking that
at the verge of tears in a lightning-flash of loneliness
3. *The demonstration*
"Natalya Gorbanevskaya
13/3 Novopeschanaya Street
Apartment 34
At noon we sit down quietly on the parapet
and unfurl our banners
almost immediately
the sound of police whistles
from all corners of Red Square
we sit
quietly and offer no resistance--"
Is this your little boy--?
we will relive this over and over
the banners torn
from our hands
blood flowing
a great jagged torn place
in the silence of complicity
that much at least
we did here
In your flat, drinking tea
waiting for the police
your children asleep while you write
quickly, the letters you want to get off
before tomorrow
I'm a ghost at your table
touching poems in a script I can't read
we'll meet each other later
(*August* 1968)
Everywhere, snow is falling. Your bandaged foot
drags across huge cobblestones, bells
hammer in distant squares.
Everything we stood against has conquered
and now we're part
of it all. *Life's the main thing*, I hear you say,
but a fog is spreading between this landmass
and the one your voice
mapped for so long for me. All that's visible
is walls, endlessly yellow-grey, where
so many risks were taken, the shredded skies
slowly littering both our continents with
the only justice left, burying
footprints, bells and voices with all deliberate speed.
(1967)
2. *Summer in the Country*
Now, again, every year for years: the life-and-death talk
late August, forebodings
under the birches, along the water's edge
and between the typed lines
and evenings, tracing a pattern of absurd hopes
in broken nutshells
but this year we both
sit after dark with the radio
unable to read, unable to write
trying the blurred edges of broadcasts
for a little truth, taking a walk before bed
wondering what a man can do, asking that
at the verge of tears in a lightning-flash of loneliness
3. *The demonstration*
"Natalya Gorbanevskaya
13/3 Novopeschanaya Street
Apartment 34
At noon we sit down quietly on the parapet
and unfurl our banners
almost immediately
the sound of police whistles
from all corners of Red Square
we sit
quietly and offer no resistance--"
Is this your little boy--?
we will relive this over and over
the banners torn
from our hands
blood flowing
a great jagged torn place
in the silence of complicity
that much at least
we did here
In your flat, drinking tea
waiting for the police
your children asleep while you write
quickly, the letters you want to get off
before tomorrow
I'm a ghost at your table
touching poems in a script I can't read
we'll meet each other later
(*August* 1968)