Tarusa

Like mountains - on this brow
Laurels of praise.
"I can't sing!"
- "You will!" - "Sound
(Put me on a diet
of flour!)
Like milk -
Is gone from my breast.
Empty. Dry.
In full-blown spring?
I feel like a twig."
- "That's an old song!
Drop it, don't blabber!"
"From now on I'd better -
Pound gravel!"
- "All the more reason to sing!"
"Am I a bullfinch,
To sing
Day in and day out?"
- "Even if you can't,
My bird, sing!
Out of spite!"
"What if I can't
put two lines together?"
-"When could - anyone?!" -
"It's torture!" - "Bear it!"
"A mown meadow -
My throat!" "Then wheeze:
That's a sound, too!"
"It's lions' business
Not women's." - "Children's:
Though disembowelled -
Orpheus still sang!"
"So, even in the grave?"
- "Under a headstone, too."
"I can't sing!"
- "Sing about that!"
Medon, 4 June 1928


The above is a poem by Marina Tsvetaeva. She spent some time in the Tarusa, from which I just returned . Tarusa is a village, on the Oka river, about 2 hours south of Moscow. My grandfather's dacha is located in Tarusa, and this is also the place where his parents are buried.



This is my greatgrandfather's tombstone. He was a veterinarian, and I believe he died after catching something from a sheep. (Don't let your imaginations wander too far.) Here he is peacefully enough positioned.










Yellow meadow
summer air
by the river
ladies bare

ahhh....










Back at the cemetery investigating a pile of broken flowers.
Checkout these animal collective tracks.http://blownbythewind.blogspot.com/2006/05/i-just-called-to-say-i-lik_114868413263778032.html