Anna Akhmatova

There’s none equal to me – he used to cite.
For him, I’m not a woman of the real,
But winter sun’s always relieving light,
And a wild song of his land, so dear.
When I am dead, he would not feel a grief,
The crazy, would not cry, “Return, my sole!”
But understand: a body cannot live
Without a sun, without a song – a soul…
And what is now?


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, July, 2002