ALARM BELLS
Bells are tolling high
for my country’s pain.
Knelling their cry
for its mournful name.
Knell for boundless spaces,
for the forests still,
tender eyes of daises,
temples on the hills.
Knell for souls shameless,
for the holiest souls,
for the love tremendous,
for the mortal throes.
Sing the knell for feast days,
merry drinking-bouts,
free of sorrow wild ways,
trumpets’ blaring sounds.
Ring the knell for power,
for the fight so fierce,
when they whipped my country
in the night and menace:
beat the memories out,
cut the roots, said rotten.
Trained us to bark loud,
washed in bloody water.
You have been trampled down,
oh Motherland of mine,
nailed to the Cross below
dark sadness of the sky.
At the seven winds –
groans of repent.
Resurrection’s call –
tolling of the bells.
Photo and rendering: Margarita Siourina