Talking to Myself Fifty-Six January 3, 2021
All around me: photos and paintings,
and a Finnish poster. My loved ones
take up wall space. I’ve been in this
room most of the time in most of last
year, staying safe from the virus that
kills. The poster over my desk is of
glacier-cut Finnish islands, a jigsaw
of forests in an impossibly blue sea
over my desk where reside printer,
fax, and scanner, and my Bach records.
To the right the wall holds Rumyantsev
forests, an abandoned village against
a golden fall. To the left, Nikolai Smirnov’s
roads, his mother’s village and her
small figure. Also Lyuba’s image of
her sister Vera emerging from the
forest like a modern Demeter. Then
that sister’s painting of the Krukov
Canal. Above the computer table,
the face of Esenin--such sad eyes.. He
was forced to kill himself, his last
poem written in blood. Beside him
Vera’s flowers, and below Nikolai’s
rendering of the Kostroma city
center, and still lower, the Ipatievsky
Monastery from across the Kostroma
River. Behind the computer on a
shelf, the Virgin’s Annunciation by
Lyuba, and my twin grandchildren,
and my friend Jaki and me. The back
wall has a long one of a village field
of dandelions, the coming of spring
with cranes flying. I thought it was
fall before I had my cataract surgery.
Aleksei’s forests and Nadya’s pink
landscapes, the ruins of Goncharov’s
home, and the enlarged flower by Doc
Ellen–all above the chest freezer where
I store my bread flours and keep all
my published books on top, and
a photo of me in my father’s arms
at age two. The back door holds old
Christmas cards, and the wall beside
it, two paintings by Roman Smirnov
of water and trees. Behind me, Smirnov’s
village farmhouse, the Golden Autumn
giving way to the First Snow. Farther away
my son Tim’s memories of New Mexico,
and Julia’s colors, which I chose that go with
Tim’s. Also, from a magazine, Botticelli’s
Arrival of Spring after Winter’s Deadlock.
May it arrive soon.
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