The True Poet

He is free as the wind, that wind Penetrated his soul, Over the years entered his poems To sing of fair weather and foul. Boris Pasternak Those who knew him, knew him as a difficult man to love, but love him they did. Those who read him year after year struggled reading each new poem, but they never stopped. What did they know the rest of us forgot: that he alone among us accepted the Necessity of Sacrifice... He had to eat, he had to sleep, needed comforting, cried out in pain - In such things he was one of us, perhaps even just like us. But his soul extended so far beyond ours. It touched boundaries unknown, crossed thresholds invisible. With his guardian angel he watched the dawn's earliest rays. A woman exuding mist and sweet perfume placed a treasure deep in his soul. In a whirlwind of snow he saw Jesus Christ walking ahead of the Twelve, the Christ of the Gospels whom he might have followed out of the blizzard. But he stayed in our midst, and what an agony he suffered for so long, for our benefit, our health of being. In the slow end, he simply collapsed into pieces. How did he remain whole as long as he did? Oh, pray for him, pray for us.... ALEKSANDR BLOK IN MEMORIAM