For Anna Akhmatova

Oh, we have strolled the winter avenues
Of the great Czar’s queen city of the North
And argued about Pushkin, over tea,
Great cups of tea in noisy little shops

Where at each table sat a poet or two
With pocket-wrinkled sheets of wild new verse
Set out like armies in desperate defense
Of the holy soil of the Motherland

Yes, we have strolled along the frozen Neva
In dream-bearing Aurora’s sacred light