At Our Dacha In Strokino
© Surazeus
2018 05 14
While sitting in the old cafe in Cambridge,
talking with his friends about poetry,
Philip gazes out the window at mist,
and sighs, "I remember summers in Russia."
Rowing my boat from the white sandy beach,
I glide in the breeze on Lake Valdayskoye,
then, stabbing water insect on sharp hook,
I cast it with my pole into green water.
When I first came to fish at eight years old,
my grandmother told me the local legend
that long ago a church sank in the ground
and formed this lake where pike swim in its gloom.
Last year my grandfather told me that divers
searched the dark waters of that ancient legend
and found nothing but rotting logs and turtles,
because glaciers carved this lake from the Earth.
I peer into the dark green of the lake,
hoping to see the round dome of the church,
and in the ancient gloom I think I see
gleaming gold that echoed with songs of monks.
But from dark depths the gold-spotted ghost bursts
and bites the hook, so I grip fishing pole
and hold tight as the large pike thrashes wild,
wrestling with its fear as I reel it in.
Beaching the rowboat, I bind the large pike
inside the basket of our old bicycle,
then glide through the eerie streets of Strokino
to the dacha where my grandparents live.
I park the bike by the vine-covered gate,
and carry gold-spotted pike to the kitchen
where my grandmother carves it with sharp knife
and fries it sizzling with spices and herbs.
Searching past hothouse where frail roses bloom,
and cucumber vines curl around the trellis,
I find my grandfather, sharp-eyed Gennady,
painting the landscape on tall wooden easel.
I watch his fingers grip the horse-hair brush
to trace elegant lines of yellow paint
that tint the lake shore reeds with gold sun beams,
highlighting secret spirit of the water.
While he paints a rowboat on placid lake,
I open book of poems by Pasternak
at his request and read the poem on August
about angled saffron beams of the sun.
When I read the stanza about grim Death,
like a surveyor gazing at his pale face
to estimate measurement of his grave,
Gennady chuckles and grins at the sky.
We sit around oak table on the porch
and eat fried pike in the soft twilight glow
as crickets on shore of Lake Valdayskoye
chirp at the rising of the silver moon.
All summer at our dacha in Strokino
we drink strawberry-flavored Kvass, and sing,
"See the beautiful birch tree in the meadow,
curly leaves dancing when summer winds blow."
© Surazeus
2018 05 14
While sitting in the old cafe in Cambridge,
talking with his friends about poetry,
Philip gazes out the window at mist,
and sighs, "I remember summers in Russia."
Rowing my boat from the white sandy beach,
I glide in the breeze on Lake Valdayskoye,
then, stabbing water insect on sharp hook,
I cast it with my pole into green water.
When I first came to fish at eight years old,
my grandmother told me the local legend
that long ago a church sank in the ground
and formed this lake where pike swim in its gloom.
Last year my grandfather told me that divers
searched the dark waters of that ancient legend
and found nothing but rotting logs and turtles,
because glaciers carved this lake from the Earth.
I peer into the dark green of the lake,
hoping to see the round dome of the church,
and in the ancient gloom I think I see
gleaming gold that echoed with songs of monks.
But from dark depths the gold-spotted ghost bursts
and bites the hook, so I grip fishing pole
and hold tight as the large pike thrashes wild,
wrestling with its fear as I reel it in.
Beaching the rowboat, I bind the large pike
inside the basket of our old bicycle,
then glide through the eerie streets of Strokino
to the dacha where my grandparents live.
I park the bike by the vine-covered gate,
and carry gold-spotted pike to the kitchen
where my grandmother carves it with sharp knife
and fries it sizzling with spices and herbs.
Searching past hothouse where frail roses bloom,
and cucumber vines curl around the trellis,
I find my grandfather, sharp-eyed Gennady,
painting the landscape on tall wooden easel.
I watch his fingers grip the horse-hair brush
to trace elegant lines of yellow paint
that tint the lake shore reeds with gold sun beams,
highlighting secret spirit of the water.
While he paints a rowboat on placid lake,
I open book of poems by Pasternak
at his request and read the poem on August
about angled saffron beams of the sun.
When I read the stanza about grim Death,
like a surveyor gazing at his pale face
to estimate measurement of his grave,
Gennady chuckles and grins at the sky.
We sit around oak table on the porch
and eat fried pike in the soft twilight glow
as crickets on shore of Lake Valdayskoye
chirp at the rising of the silver moon.
All summer at our dacha in Strokino
we drink strawberry-flavored Kvass, and sing,
"See the beautiful birch tree in the meadow,
curly leaves dancing when summer winds blow."
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