Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, RIVER OF MEMORIES, by FANIA KRUGER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

RIVER OF MEMORIES, by                    
First Line: Where the blue waters of the neva
Last Line: Hark to the water's broken song.
Subject(s): Memory; Neva (river), Russia; Russia; Soviet Union; Russians


Where the blue waters of the Neva
Break on the shore in ageless play,
I, with my older sister, Olga,
Sought fluted shells one summer day.

I watched cloud argosies go by
With pallid sails flung to the wind;
Her gleaning eyes saw but the sand,
And how the small grains were disciplined.

Because my hand was swift to find
The pearly shells on love's highway
She envied me my vivid dreams,
Because her own were vague and gray.

What if we quarreled that vanished hour?
Since then the tides of hate have run,
And stormy grief has followed us
To blot that distant springtime sun.

Since then we felt the knout, the blade
And knew life's darker, grosser ills;
We saw young blossoms crushed in dew,
We saw how years have leveled hills.

Our measured days so soon must cease,
Now, Olga, let me press your hand.
Calm, in the twilight hour of life
All hate is done, I understand.

Forgotten are the shells and pebbles,
Lost with the ocean's windy roar,
Washed by the restless flowing river,
Gone, to return to us no more.

Now, walking by the river Neva
In memory, shadows growing long,
I, and my grey-haired sister, Olga,
Hark to the water's broken song.





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