From the gray North

now come these photos.

Not all its arrears

life has had time to defray.

A familiar tree reappears

out of the gray.

This is the highway to Luga.

My house with the pillars. The Oredezh.

Almost from anywhere

homeward even today

I can still find my way.

Thus, sometimes, to the bathers

on the seaside sand

a small boy will bring over

something in his clenched hand.

Everything—from a pebble

with a violet rim

to the dim greenish part of a

glass object—is festively brought over by him.

This is Batovo.

This is Rozhestveno.