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Hands, matches, an ashtray. A ritual beautiful and bitter.

Anna Akhmatova

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Anna Akhmatova
Age: 76 †
Born: 1889
Born: June 23
Died: 1966
Died: March 5
Author
Literary Critic
Literary Scholar
Poet
Translator
Writer
Odesa
Anna Andreyevna Gorenko
Anna Achmatova
Anna Ahmatova
Anna Gorenko
Anna Andreevna Gorenko
Anna Andreevna Akhmatova
Ashtrays
Matches
Ritual
Bitter
Beautiful
Hands
Ashtray

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The secret of secrets is inside me again.
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But here, in the murk of conflagration, where scarcely a friend is left to know we, the survivors, do not flinch from anything, not from a single blow. Surely the reckoning will be made after the passing of this cloud. We are the people without tears, straighter than you ... more proud.
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No, not under the vault of another sky, not under the shelter of other wings. I was with my people then, there where my people were doomed to be.
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The triumphs of a mysterious non-meeting are desolate ones unspoken phrases, silent words.
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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.
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Italy is a dream that keeps returning for the rest of your life.
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This cruel age has deflected me, like a river from this course. Strayed from its familiar shores, my changeling life has flowed into a sister channel. How many spectacles I've missed: the curtain rising without me, and falling too. How many friends I never had the chance to meet.
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Your voice is wild and simple. You are untranslatable Into any one tongue.
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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.
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The word dropped like a stone on my still living breast. Confess: I was prepared, am somehow ready for the test.
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Mary Magdalene beat her breasts and sobbed, His dear disciple, stone-faced, stared. His mother stood apart. No other looked into her secret eyes. Nobody dared.
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Now no one will listen to songs. The prophesied days have begun. Latest poem of mine, the world has lost its wonder, Don't break my heart, don't ring out.
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A land not mine, still forever memorable, the waters of its ocean chill and fresh. Sand on the bottom whiter than chalk, and the air drunk, like wine, late sun lays bare the rosy limbs of the pinetrees. Sunset in the ethereal waves: I cannot tell if the day is ending, or the world, or if the secret of secrets is inside me again.
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That was when the ones who smiled Were the dead, glad to be at rest.
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Let whoever wants to, relax in the south, And bask in the garden of paradise. Here is the essence of north—and it's autumn I've chosen as this year's friend.
Anna Akhmatova
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Rising from the past, my shadow Is running in silence to meet me.
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The stars of death stood over us. And Russia, guiltless, beloved, writhed under the crunch of bloodstained boots, under the wheels of Black Marias.
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Forgive me, that I manage badly, Manage badly but live gloriously, That I leave traces of myself in my songs, That I appeared to you in waking dreams.
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Wild honey smells of freedom The dust - of sunlight The mouth of a young girl, like a violet But gold - smells of nothing.
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A choir of angels glorified the hour, the vault of heaven was dissolved in fire. Father, why hast Thou forsaken me? Mother, I beg you, do not weep for me.
Anna Akhmatova