The Saturday Poem

Our Own Land

There is no one in the world more tearless,
more proud, more simple than us.
1922

We don't wear it in sacred amulets on our chests.
We don't compose hysterical poems about it.
It does not disturb out bitter dream-sleep.
It doesn't seem to be the promised paradise.
We don't make of it a soul
object for sale and barter,
and we being sick, poverty-stricken, unable to utter a word
don't even remember about it.
Yes, for us it's mud on galoshes,
for us it's crunch on teeth,
and we mill, mess and crush
that dust and ashes
that is not mixed up in anything.
But we'll lie in it and be it,
that's why, so freely, we call it our own.

Leningrad, 1961

ANNA AKHMATOVA