Russian Language

The diamond beauty of language.

How difficult to prove it is lovely.

The rough stone that dulls the senses

Like sad prose felt at night

Is smooth as lake jewel by moonlight—

When the duck pond

Has the small vagabond breaths delicately

Making their way to the poised rushes.

A Russian Cossack tree dances with its arms crossed—

Legs pushing from underground

Upward from the strength of its earth

Has its power in the warring nature

Of its life force.

Russian blood poured forth from the earth

Once the facets polished and purified

By the rare air breathed by

Lermontov, Turgenev, Akhmatova, Mayakovski.

It gleams and gleams.