Here is my gift, not roses on your grave,
not sticks of burning incense.
You lived aloof, maintaining to the end
your magnificent disdain.
You drank wine, and told the wittiest jokes,
and suffocated inside stifling walls.
Alone you let the terrible stranger in,
and stayed with her alone.

Now you're gone, and nobody says a word
about your troubled and exalted life.
Only my voice, like a flute, will mourn
at your dumb funeral feast.
Oh, who would have dared believe that half-crazed I,
I, sick with grief for the buried past,
I, smoldering on a slow fire,
having lost everything and forgotten all,
would be fated to commemorate a man
so full of strength and will and bright inventions,
who only yesterday it seems, chatted with me,
hiding the tremor of his mortal pain.

Added: Feb 20 2003 | Viewed: 6519 times | Comments (0)

Poet: Anna Akhmatova
Poem: In Memory of M. B.
Volume: Poems of Akhmatova
Year: Published/Written in 1973
There are no comments for this poem. Why not be the first one to post something about it?

Are you looking for more information on this poem? Perhaps you are trying to analyze it? The poem, In Memory of M. B., has not yet been commented on. You can click here to be the first to post a comment about it. Of course you can also always discuss poems by Anna Akhmatova with others on the Poetry Connection poetry forum!