isn't it time for the birds to sing?

Max Ensor Masks Confronting Death 1888

in memory of the demon

boris leonidovich pasternak

Night after night he came from Tamara's

wrapped in glacier's blue light.

And marked with his wings

where the nightmare should drone and end.

He did not sob, did not bind

the bare whip-scarred arms.

The gravestone's shadow falls beyond

the fence of the Georgian church.

No matter how wicked the hump

his shadow made no face beneath the lattice.

Next to the icon-lamp the lute

breathed no word of the Princess.

Phosphorus lit through his hair

and the Colossus never heard

how the Caucasus

grieved and went grey.

Two steps from his window

he tugged at the hairs of his cloak,

and whispered into the icy crags: "Sleep, little one,

I'll be an avalanche when I come back!"