Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire

by David Remnick

Again the hands of the clock are nearing The unforgettable hour. I see, hear, touch All of you: the cripple they had to support Painfully to the end of the line; the moribund; And the girl who would shake her beautiful head and Say: “I come here as if it were home.” I should like to call you all by name, But they have lost the lists.… I have woven for them a great shroud Out of the poor words I overheard them speak. I remember them always and everywhere, And if they shut my tormented mouth, Through which a hundred million of my people cry, Let them remember me also.… And if ever in this country they should want To build me a monument I consent to that honor, But only on the condition that they Erect it not on the seashore where I was born: My last links there were broken long ago, Nor by the stump in the Royal Gardens, Where an inconsolable young shade is seeking me, But here, where I stood for three hundred hours And where they never, never opened the doors for me. Lest in blessed death I should forget The grinding scream of the Black Marias, The hideous clanging gate, the old Woman wailing like a wounded beast. And may the melting snow drop like tears From my motionless bronze eyelids, And the prison pigeons coo above me And the ships sail slowly down the Neva.