Flashes of Memory: Part One

Dedicated to my fellow RSPers.

Beginnings

Russia, we said

to all those people

asking

Why? Why

go to that place

of Communism

snow huts

vodka and caviar?

(The center

of all that is

evil,

you know).

Of course we went

not knowing gravity’s laws

would overwhelm us

with the force of

the Neva

on her flooding days.

Two suitcases bulged with

winter boots

peanut butter,

questions

in a Starbucks kiosk

a random group (impossible)

we hid

expectations

at the diving board

of new,

new strangers

on a common, unknown path.

You remember

we started out that life

in a St. Petersburg series;

a purgatory of

American cafes

Subways

grudgingly catering

to our untrained tourist tongues

drowned

by the metro

in her rhythmic, faithful scream

Brought us to palaces,

and tapestries of riches

stunned with newborn child awe

(at first) then melted

into thin broth,

common

in the brazen repetition

of fairy tale fountains,

glittering domes, gold

halls that reached on

in yawning infinity

where the tsar had strode.

The gaudy weight

like lead, burdened

for stories of peasants

shivering in izbas

with seven children and tattered rags

praising the tsar,

their little father

in his dreamlike

removed from life

excessiveness.

We were removed

birds free from the earth

flying

over blurry wholeness.

We were spectators,

testing, twirling our forks,

adventurous, through

the beets and cabbage

(we used to think were strange).

We were blind,

squinting

at an unwashed window

concealing,

revealing a smidgen

a spark

of the soul that

longed to reveal itself

In the canyon eyes of

people

who would embed our hearts

with words

that have no written form.