LINDENS

My ultimate park would have to be
The Summer Gardens of St. Petersburg.
Who would I have been without this
Landscaped space, without the boy Osip
Running happily down its alleys of trees
Nor Akhmatova preserving the rustle
Of its fallen leaves?  Many times, in
Meditation, I have wandered under
The overarching lindens, shadowing
Me from a sultry gloom or walked along
The pond at Tsarskoye Selo, mirroring
The overhanging branches as water spiders
Skipped and the maid, with the vase
Frozen in deep bronze contemplation.
On which benches sat Dostoyevsky
Scribbling in his notebooks or where did
Bely sense a wet autumn flying through
A grey sky, September arriving off  
The Neva’s cold, turbid and infected waters
That were such a contrast to these hallowed
Linden halls before the snow fell?

c) Jan G. Otterstrom F.
    July 5, 2007
    St Petersburg, Russia