All sadness, grief, and fear

Runs through and out from canals and rivers

Out into the bay, the sea, the ocean
Stone faces, some alive and some carved with chisel
Monuments to revolutions long gone and disappointing
Domes of blue, gold, and gray, rebuilt from rubble
We walk before palaces of extreme splendor
Holding secrets of extreme anguish
The beauty! Its heaviness stops my breath
A city of millions orbiting the sarcophagi of czars and czarinas
Graves of poetic masters and musical geniuses asleep beneath snow
Red flags and red banners, gold sickles, gold hammers
Military marches, boots pounding the pavement
Secret minds working their devilish plans
Ostentatious dining rooms with presidential seats
A place to show off and appear well, happy
Grimy suburbs and their grimy complexes
On the outskirts of royalty the commoners abide
Ice-covered sidewalks they trot unafraid of slipping
Vodka and furs to keep them warm
Salted fish and beer to cheer them
Remnants of an old regime colliding with everything new
No time to make way, no time to clean up
A hasty hybrid created without planning or thought
Dirty, disorganized, yet somehow comforting
Foreign yet I feel at home
A land so incomprehensibly vast!
She can hold my pain, as she always has
For each generation and every individual
A home for suffering, and thereby some strange peace dwells

The cold of winter abates

At long last
Warmth and sunlight arrive
Trees, bushes, flowers explode
The green intensifies day by day
Uncontrollable growth, unexpected life
Sprouting wildly, savagely invading my eyes and nose
A fresh new air fills my nostrils
A bright new light shines in my pupils
The sun, as if to make up for its absence, stays aloft all night
Spring and summer overwhelming
To balance the great depths of winter
Brand new and centuries old
Catastrophes smothered by joy
Snow melted by sun and tears wiped away
To drain down the canals, the rivers
And far out into the sea