Quotes About Loss

Maa, vaikkei kotimaani olekaan / on muistoissani katoamaton / ja merikin niin hellän-jäinen, / sen vesi miltei suolaton

That was a time when only the deadcould smile.

This cruel age has deflected me, like a river from this course. Strayed from its familiar shores, my changeling life has flowed into a sister channel. How many spectacles I've missed: the curtain rising without me, and falling too. How many friends I never had the chance to meet.

Who will grieve for this woman? Does she not seem too insignificant for our concern? Yet in my heart I never will deny her, who suffered death because she chose to turn. - Lot's Wife

Forgive me that I felt forsaken, That grief and angst was all I knew. Forgive me that I kept mistaking Too many other men for you.

And if I die, then who Will write my poems to you?

Let love be the gravestone Lying on my life.

And you, my friends! So few of you remain That you are dearer daily. I rejoice In you. How short the road has become, That once appeared the longest road of all.

I don't know if you're alive or dead. Can you on earth be sought, or only when the sunsets fade be mourned secretly in my thought? All is for you: the daily prayer, the sleepless heat at night, and of my verses, the white flock, and of my eyes, the blue fire. No-one was more cherished, no-one tortured me more, not even the one who betrayed me to torture, not even the one who caressed me and forgot.

All's taken away: my love and my power. The body, thrown into city it hates, Finds no joy in the sunlight. With every hour The blood grows colder in my veins.

I've ceased to smile long ago, The bitter winds now chill my lips, Another hope was just let go, Another song was added since. Against my will, I'll cede this song To people's laughter and offense, Because love's silence for the soul Is too unbearably immense.

And you, my friends who have been called away, I have been spared to mourn for you and weep, not as a frozen willow over your memory, but to cry to the world the names of those who sleep. What names are those! I slam shut the calendar, down on your knees, all! Blood of my heart, the people of Leningrad march out in even rows, the living, the dead: fame can't tell them apart.

Beyond the lake the waning moon has slowed, And stands there like a window open wide Into a hushed and brightly lit abode Where something dreadful has occurred inside.

I, the half-mad mourner of buried days

I, like a river, Have been diverted by the ruthless era. My life was switched. It flows Into another channel, past strange lands, And I no longer recognize my shores.

You will not live again. You will not rise from the snow Twenty-eight holes from the bayonet Five from the gun. I have made a shroud for my friend, Sad cloth. She loves, loves blood This Russian earth.

Whether to look for you on earth -- I don't know if you're dead or you live -- Or about you in the evening I should for you, departed, grieve. All is for you: and the daily prayer And the sleeplessness' swooning flame And the white flock of my poems And my eyes' blue violent flame. No one was dearer to me, no one, No one left me this bereft, Not even he who betrayed me to torment, Not even he who caressed, then left.

Oh, quantos espetáculos perdi, quantas vezes o pano ergueu-se e caiu sem mim. Quantos de meus amigos nunca encontrei uma só vez em toda a minha vida, (...)

Let love become the gravestone That lies upon my life.

Can you describe this?" And I said: "I can." Then something like a smile passed fleetingly over what had once been her face.

Oh, how often you'll remember The sudden pain of unnamed longing — Anna Akhmatova, from "I'll erase this day from your memory," trans. A. S. Kline, White Flock (Hyperborea, 1917)

a grieved shadow hunts my body's warmth

Ahora sé cómo se desvanecen los rostros, cómo bajo los párpados anida el terror, cómo el dolor traza en las mejillas rudas páginas cuneiformes, cómo unos rizos cenicientos y negros se tornan plateados de repente, la sonrisa se marchita en los labios dóciles y en una risa seca tiembla el pavor. y no sólo por mí rezo, sino por quienes permanecieron allí conmigo, en el frío feroz y en el infierno de Julio, bajo el muro rojo y ciego

He was jealous, fearful and tender, He loved me like God's only light, And that she not sing of the past times He killed my bird colored white. He said, in the lighthouse at sundown: "Love me, laugh and write poetry!" And I buried the joyous songbird Behind a round well near a tree. I promised that I would not mourn her. But my heart turned to stone without choice, And it seems to me that everywhere And always I'll hear her sweet voice.