Because
“Because…Because…Because I’m dreaming about it Even though the door is nailed shut.”
Anna Akhmatova
Please, can this be real?
Languishing in line long months.
Any word of him?
No, but we will take your bread.
Tomorrow I will be back.
The Great Terror (Purge).
Remembering when they could
evaporate sons.
Everything in life was gone.
Still, I wait here in the cold.
9 thoughts on "Because"
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nice drama here..!
we’re in the same lane
i have ‘evaporate’ today too 🙂
I’m trying to place the Akhmatova as context for the poem e.g. create a historical link to explain the bleakness of this plague-like landscape you’ve drawn. It reads very much as a coronavirus poem, Coleman, or a poem of occupation – “any word of him?” – and not even though thrown into the middle of your action with minimal anchors, I find it a tantalizing couple of stanzas.
Everything is sustained. The poet’s questions center on loss, the details support a sense of meagerness, a declarative/capitalized/title of PURGE, and the fight of hope at the end.
This is a fine piece.
Manny, I think the epigraph is a reference to her husband being dead but I thought it worked as a reference point for this piece about her son who was one of stalin’s ‘disappeared’
people during ” The Purge”: Stalin’s consolidation and ethnic cleansing attempt.
Thank you for your comment
A big picture
in a lyrical form.
Terrifying
Agree with Jim, terrifying.
Remembering when they could
evaporate sons.
I didn’t want to add this to the poem.
There is an incredible story.
At some point in the 18 months that she went to the jail everyday with fresh baked bribes for the guards she was recognized. The woman’s eyes unglazed and she asked ” poet, can you write this?” And Akhmatova said simply ” yes ”
That story has always given me the chills. The power of the poem.
Oh, those Russian poets! I love how the poem mimics her style and how haunting it’s word are. She conjures collective trauma and loneliness as well. You are an usual — but fitting muse for you.
This is so well done, Coleman. And that last line — absolutely chilling.