Some Memories

Close to the border in Bohemia,
at the warm springs of Frantishkovy-Lazny, 
the sky swells with hot clouds.
Light seeps through the Turkish bath's steamed—up window, 
the smell of moist flesh mingles with the scent of red roses.

Water flows freely here,
curing heart pains and impotence,
and trees branch out as far as you can see.
It seems that if you stepped down hard enough,
a spring would bubble up, rich in sulfur and calcium, 
or a thick beech tree rise all green and white.

I went to see the Three Lilies Hotel. 
My friend the Czech poet Nezval 
tells me old Goethe worked there
               through many a night.
Many a summer dawn
               caressed his neck bending over his writing table.
The year?
Nezval doesn't know exactly.
1805, he says—
                       no, 1800
                              or maybe 1808.
But we both remember another date
                              to the day,
when tanks with white crosses on their backs 
               rode past the Three Lilies Hotel:
it shook so hard
               a table fell over upstairs.
I was in prison then
               in Istanbul.
Tanks rode through Warsaw and Paris,
               white crosses on their backs.
I was in prison in Chankiri.
Tanks loomed in the snow 
               outside Moscow.
I was in prison in Bursa.
I've known a lot of people in my day, 
from all walks of life.
They had traveled far different roads—
asphalt, stone, dirt,
rainy, sunny, wide, narrow.
They'd rested under many different trees. 
Some worked like wound-up clocks, 
               never missing a beat;
some were wool-gatherers;
some were like seeds, full of hope head to toe; 
some were gentle, like lullabies
               in all languages;
some were fiery, like red peppers, 
some stubborn
               as mules;
some were stingy, some generous;
some were hooked on women, some on tobacco.
The young
               were like kindling just catching fire, 
and the old were as old, sober, and wise 
               as the earth.
Most didn't know a word of Russian 
               beyond horascho
                       and maybe tovarisch.
But in the winter of 1941,
when tanks loomed in the snow outside Moscow, 
all of them were ready to spill their blood
for that great white city
               they'd never visited.
They'd seen it only in their dreams,
construction without end—
               scaffolds, cranes, and people like grains of sand.
They'd seen it in their dreams—
a red square
               ringed with gold domes,
at the center a tomb
                             with Lenin inside.
They woke up with tears in their eyes,
in agony.
They'd seen this city in their dreams,
a giant
          apple tree
                         blossoming pink and white.

For me, it's not just a city of dreams
                                       and hopes,
not some unattainable city in the clouds, 
               forever beyond the dawn horizon 
in summer on the open sea.
I'm as much an old Muscovite
as a child of Istanbul.
I had my first audience with its people 
at a factory in Krasnaya Presya.
I read my poetry.
Heavy hands resting on their knees,
               a kindly patience in their eyes,
they listened to me as if they knew Turkish 
for a good forty-five minutes, more or less, 
and clapped.
To this day, whenever I start getting a swelled head, 
               the sound of that applause
                            brings me to my senses.
Pushkin hadn't been relocated yet
and looked the same then as he does now—
bareheaded, a cape
thrown over his shoulders.
He was tall and dark then, too—
a smart, sad, elegant
St. Petersburg gentleman. 
Several times a week,
early mornings or late afternoons,
I'd stick one of our big books under my arm, 
stuff my cheeks with sunflower seeds,
               and go sit on a bench near him—
               the second on the left.
In winter it smelled of fresh snow;
in summer, cool leaves.
This spot worked miracles:
I'd open my book,
and what I couldn't get in class at the university
                                   would suddenly be clear . . .
There's a courtyard off the Arbat.
On winter nights
its brick walls glow,
floor on warm floor,
with orange, blue, and gold windows.
A young man from Istanbul
               shivers in the snowy courtyard for hours.
Tamara's shadow comes and goes
               in the blue window on the top floor.
This city is my city.
I came here at nineteen,
               arriving at Kiev Station
                                   three hours late.
I saw a man in a cloth cap—
               I can still picture him.
He was either in a poster 
               on the wall
or on the platform
               under the broken glass.
Either way,
               he stood a head taller
                              than other men,
casually leaning on his sledgehammer.
I went up to him,
               took off my fur hat,
                       and saluted the city's new lord and master.
The year was 1922.
Ah, those were the days.
My heart leaping like a fish in water, 
the gloom gone to my head like wine, 
I'd come from Anatolia via Batum
with just one question for Comrade Lenin . . .