"You will hear thunder and remember me, And think: "she wanted storms. - Anna Akhmatova

I am in the middle of it: chaos and poetry; poetry and love and again, complete chaos. Pain, disorder, occasional clarity; and at the bottom of it all: only love; poetry. Sheer enchantment, fear, humiliation. It all comes with love

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... Night.

I have learned how faces fall to bone, how under the eyelids terror lurks, how suffering inscribes on cheeks the hard lines of its cuneiform texts, how glossy black or ash-fair locks turn overnight to tarnished silver, how smiles fade on submissive lips, and fear quavers in a dry titter. And I pray not for myself alone.. for all who stood outside the jail, in bitter cold or summer's blaze, with me under that blind red wall.