AKHMATOVA’S “SUMMER GARDEN”

I want to return to that unique garden walled

By the most magnificent ironwork in the world

Where the statues remember me young and I remember

Them the year they were underwater

And in fragrant silence

Under a royal colonnade of lindens

I imagine the creaking of ships’ masts and the swan

Floats over the centuries admiring its flawless twin.

Asleep there like the dead are hundreds of thousands

Of footfalls of friends and enemies, enemies and friends

The procession of those shades is endless

From the granite urn to the doorway of the palace

Where my white nights of those years whisper

About some love grand and mysterious

And everything glows like mother-of-pearl and jasper

Though the source of that light also is mysterious.