"You dreamt of me, I knew, And hence I couldn't sleep. The lantern flickered blue And there my path ran steep. [...] "This is a lake," you thought.… - Anna Akhmatova

Such grief might make the mountain stoop, reverse the waters where they flow, but cannot burst these ponderous bolts that block us from the prison cells crowded with mortal woe...

Give me bitter years of sickness, Suffocation, insomnia, fever, Take my child and my lover, And my mysterious gift of song — This I pray at your liturgy After so many tormented days, So that the stormcloud over darkened Russia Might become a cloud of glorious rays.

I’m not grieving, I’m not angry,
and only darkness accompanies me.
How deep it is and velvety,
above all, always familiar to me…