A Confession to St. Petersburg

Branded at the edges by quiet, sorrowed instants,

A paradise of dampness, clouds, and rain,

My beloved city — through your fleeting gleams and dimness

You weave your spell and gently fool the sane.

For strangers, you are capitals and mirrors:

Palmyra, Venice — Northern, yet the same.

Imperial, aloof, the fortress seems,

If one won’t look past iron lace and frame.

For me — you breathe. Capricious and possessive,

Proud in your bearing, distant, hard to tame.

You guard your secrets — watchful and obsessive,

Distracting passersby with grand perspectives’ game.

I love to slip into your hidden quarters,

To stand below your pyramids of stone,

And drift through past and present restless waters

To glimpse a tomorrow — still asleep, unknown.

You teach me strength and generosity of spirit,

Tempered by Baltic winds that carve the soul.

The ordinary gray dissolves to rainbow lyrics,

As Admiralty’s spire lifts up the whole.

I love you — both in gloom and in your glow.

I take you whole — with shield, or on the shield.

From love and pride, the tears now freely flow:

That fate allowed my life upon your field.