Tomorrow the mirrors will mock me.

You do not know just what you’ve been forgiven.

Real tenderness can’t be confused, It’s quiet and can’t be heard.

Each of our lives is a Shakespearean drama raised to the thousandth degree.

Courage: Great Russian word, fit for the songs of our children’s children, pure on their tongues, and free.

I have long had this premonition of a bright day and a deserted house.

No foreign sky protected me, no stranger’s wing shielded my face. I stand as witness to the common lot survivor of that time, that place.

Now no one will listen to songs. The prophesied days have begun. Latest poem of mine, the world has lost its wonder, Don’t break my heart, don’t ring out.

Not, not mine: it’s somebody else’s wound; I could never have borne it. So take the thing that happened, hide it, stick it in the ground; whisk the lamps away.

All has been looted, betrayed, sold; black death’s wing flashed ahead.