In Memory Of Mikhail Bulgakov.

Mikhail Bulgakov

I said yesterday that I would read one poem by Anna Akhmatova a day. Well, this is today's poem that caught my eye. I think it is a powerful and very moving poem. It is called In Memory Of Mikhail Bulgakov. I chose this one because a friend of mine thinks that The Master And Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov is one of the best books ever written. He even went all the way to Moscow to visit Bulgakov’s grave.

This, not graveyard roses, is my gift;

And I won’t burn sticks of incense:

You died as unflinchingly as you lived,

With magnificent defiance.

Drank wine, and joked – were still the wittiest,

Choked on the stifling air.

You yourself let in the terrible guest

And stayed alone with her.

Now you’re no more. And at your funeral feast

We can expect no comment from the mutes

On your high, stricken life. One voice at least

Must break the silence, like a flute.

O, who would have believed that I who have been tossed

On a slow fire to smoulder, I, the buried days’

Orphan and weeping mother, I who have lost

Everything, and forgotten everyone, half-crazed –

Would be recalling one so full of energy

And will, and touched by that creative flame,

Who only yesterday, it seems, chatted to me,

Hiding the illness crucifying him.

(Written at the house on the Fontanka 1940).

Here is a recent photo of Brian Leahy at Mikhail Bulgakov's resting place in Novodevinchy Cemetery in Moscow.