the passion of tyutchev

upriver from my school

- perhaps a kilometre -

there's a quiet promontory

that extends from the city cemetery out into the river.

it's a beautiful sanctified space

that affords the reverent person

an opportunity for

that rich silence

usually found in churches

or deep woods.

this gentle place grants a

meditative peacefulness

that a hundred metres away

is displaced by the noise of the roadway

i use to bicycle home on.

fyodor tyutchev knew such a place

in his own meanderings.

the tsarkoselsky gardens.

tsarsoselsky gardens semion shchedri

i love the tsarskoselsky gardens

late in the fall when, in soft haze

enfolded, as in sleep's embrace

they lie... the cold's breath slowly hardens,

and on the dull glass of the lake,

clad in that same fine haze, white-winged

znd strangely languid visions linger

znd seem bemused, but half-awake.

the skies are grey, by not a star lit...

the evening's shadows onward press

and softly lick the steps dark scarlet

of catherine's lofty palaces.

then dark the gardens grow and dreamy,

the stars appear and turn a dome,

outlined by them, into a gleam of

a golden past, its symbol lone...

fyodor ivanovich tyutchev