In human closeness there is a secret edge, Nor love nor passion can pass it above, Let lips with lips be joined in silent rage, And hearts be burst a… - Anna Akhmatova

Flowers, cold from the dew,
And autumn's approaching breath,
I pluck for the warm, luxuriant braids,
Which haven't faded yet.

In their nights, fragrantly resinous,
Entwined with delightful mystery,
They will breathe in her springlike
Extraordinary beauty.

But in a whirlwind of sound and fire,
From her shing head they will flutter
And fall—and before her
They will die, faintly fragrant still.

And, impelled by faithful longing,
My obedient gaze will feast upon them—
With a reverent hand,
Love will gather their rotting remains.

All's ringing, roaring, grinding, breakers' crash -
and silence all at once, release:
it means he is tiptoeing over pine needles,
so as not to startle the light sleep of space.

And it means he is counting the grains
in the blasted ears; it means
he has come again to the Daryal Gorge,
accursed and black, from another funeral.

And again Moscow, where the heart's fever burns.
Far off the deadly sleighbell chimes,
someone is lost two steps from home
in waist-high snow. The worst of times...

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...