WILLOW (Anna Akhmatova 1940)

And I grew up in patterned tranquillity,

In the cool nursery of the young century.

And the voice of man was not dear to me,

But the voice of the wind I could understand.

But best of all the silver willow.

And, obligingly, it lived

With me all my life; it’s weeping branches

Fanned my insomnia with dreams.

And – strange! – I have outlived it.

There the stump stands; with strange voices

Other willows are conversing

Under our, under those skies.

And I am silent…As if a brother had died.