The Stars Of Death Stood

You Do Not Know Just What You've Been Forgiven.

Not, Not Mine: It's Somebody Else's Wound; I Could Never Have Borne It. So Take The Thing That Happened, Hide It, Stick It In The Ground; Whisk The Lamps Away.

Give Me Bitter Years Of Sickness, Suffocation, Insomnia, Fever, Take My Child And My Lover, And My Mysterious Gift Of Song This I Pray At Your Liturgy After So Many Tormented Days, So That The Stormcloud Over Darkened Russia Might Become A Cloud Of Glorious Rays.

In The Terrible Years Of The Yezhov Terror I Spent Seventeen Months Waiting In Line Outside The Prison In Leningrad. One Day Somebody In The Crowd Identified Me . . . And Asked Me In A Whisper . . . "can You Describe This?" And I Said: "i Can."

... He Is Rewarded With A Form Of Eternal Childhood, With The Bounty And Vigilance Of The Stars, The Whole World Was His Inheritance And He Shared It With Everyone.