February Diary [extract] by Olga Berggolts

It was a day like any other.

A woman friend of mine called round.

Without a tear she told me she’d

just buried her one true friend.

We sat in silence till the morning.

What words were there to say to her?

I’m a Leningrad widow too.

 

by Ольга Фёдоровна Берггольц (Olga Fyodorovna Berggolts)

a.k.a. Olga Fyodorovna Bergholz

(1942)

translated by Robert Chandler

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A Soviet poet, writer, playwright and journalist. She is most famous for her work on the Leningrad radio during the city’s blockade, when she became the symbol of city’s strength and determination.

 

Fun extra: Here is a recital of the entire poem in the original Russian:

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‘God smiled. The controls’ by R. S. Thomas

God smiled. The controls

were working; the small

eaten by the large, the large

by the larger. One problem

remained: the immunity

of a species. ‘Easy,’

the jester at his side

whispered, indicating

the air’s window that the germs

thronged. God opened it a crack, and the human edifice

was dismantled. Among the ruins

one, stupider than the rest,

sat, seeing history’s wheel

idle, putting a hand out, ready

to start it all over again.

 

by R. S. Thomas

from Counterpoint (1990)