Russian Episodes

  

           Peredelkino and elsewhere

 

Bizarre letters---like signing

with somebody else’s fingers.

 

No directories. Anywhere.

  

An oyster sky.

 

Cukes every meal.

 

Napkins, tissue-thin triangles, say

eat neatly.

 

Jasmine’s scent overwhelms

 

the pines’.

 

Frail pensioners hunt

 

in weeds for benign mushrooms.

 

A lineup of tall

blue spruce, alert in every needle,

guards a cement-block

 

residence for guests.

 

Elsewhere, a cluster of domes

gold pates shining

over the high wall.

 

Nearby, in open stalls,

muddy wet tiles

surround holes

 

to squat over.

 

Black-bearded seminarians

in black brimless hats

and slim black robes

step quickly past a bed of red

 

begonias against a black-

and-white checked refectory.

 

But how do they kneel?

                                                          

Inside the cathedral, male

voices soar---the choir

stands.

 

Later, a brown field with a few

bent-over kerchiefed women

slides by. 

 

More pastorals, more low hills

till eyelids won’t stay open.

 

A guide talks us through

the Tretchikov, where great

 

dead Russians hang.

 

Displeased with lateness

and no-show, lies, rain daily,

 

the others sneak off,

separately,

buy tickets, pack

 

complaints and dyspepsia

 

and fly home, early.

 

Our driver, late again---

distraught to find himself

abandoned

 

by all but one,

 

and no language between us,

 

settles down,

gives me a necklace of stones

from the Black Sea

in jellybean tones.

 

I hand him a tape of early jazz

brought from home. 

He beams.  It seems

 

the rain we thought

would never cease, has

ceased at last.

Carolyn Stoloff

Barnwood poetry magazine