Julie G’s Reviews > Poems of Anna Andreevna Akhmatova > Status Update

Where nothing is needed, I walk like a child,
My shadow serves as the friend I crave.
The wind breezes out of a grove gone wild,
And my foot is on the edge of the grave.

I warn you, that's the way things are:
This is my final lifetime.
Not as a swallow, reed, or star,
Not as a bell to ring or chime,
Not as the water in a spring,
Not as a maple, branch or beam--
I won't alarm those who are living,
I won't appear in anyone's dream,
Unappeased and unforgiving.

Night. A torch. A final kiss.
Outside, the sound of fate--a kind
Of howl. From hell he sent her a curse.
In paradise, she was still on his mind.

Forgive me, forgive me, for having grieved
For ignoring the sunlight, too.
And especially for having believed
That so many others were you.

As if through a straw, you drink my soul.
I know--It's bitter and intoxicating.