On a fateful day, an unlucky time
July 5, 2023Improvisation
July 5, 2023Margarita
Sundering the bushes like a snare,
More violet than Margarita’s tight-pressed lips,
More passionate than Margarita’s white-eyed stare,
The nightingale glowed, royally throbbed and trilled.
Like the scent of grass ascending,
Like the crazed rainfall’s mercury, the foliage among,
He stupefied the bark, approached the mouth, panting,
And, halting there, upon a braid he hung.
When Margarita to the light was drawn,
Stroking her eyes with an astonished hand,
It seemed, beneath the helm of branch and rain,
A weary Amazon was fallen to the ground.
Her head in her hand in his hand lay,
Her other arm was bent back up to where,
Dangling, there hung her helmet of shade,
Sundering the branches like a snare.
Boris Pasternak
Boris Pasternak (1890-1960) was a Russian poet, novelist, and literary translator. He is best known for his epic novel "Doctor Zhivago," which explores the life of a poet during the Russian Revolution and the Soviet era. Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1958, but was forced to decline the award due to pressure from the Soviet government. Some of his other notable works include the poetry collections "My Sister, Life" and "Themes and Variations," as well as the plays "Aerial Ways" and "The Blind Beauty."