The patient watches
July 5, 2023Oh terrible, beloved! A poet’s loving
July 5, 2023Ploughing Time
What is the matter with the landscape?
Familiar landmarks are not there.
Ploughed fields, like squares upon a chessboard,
Today are scattered everywhere.
The newly-harrowed vast expanses
So evenly are spread about,
As though the valley had been spring-cleaned
Or else the mountains flattened out.
And that same day, in one endeavour,
Outside the furrows every tree
Bursts into leaf, light-green and downy,
And stretches skyward, tall and free.
No speck of dust on the new maples,
And colours nowhere are as clean
As is the light-grey of the ploughland
And as the silver-birch’s green.
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."