Pledge to Daisies

Someday I may forget the birches —
Trite pulp for our homesick poets.
Even the flags, blood-red,
Golden hammer and sickle.

Lenin’s ubiquitous face,
Brezhnev’s bushy eyebrows,
And the diamond-star medallion on his tie —
I will someday, I suppose, forget.

The playground where burdock leaves
Seemed big as elephant ears,
Enough for a child to hide behind —
It’s possible to forget.

The down of poplars in July,
Covering Siberian city streets
Like a gossamer blanket,
Dry as ashes, white as snow —
And the thrill of flipping a match
To watch the momentary swish of flashing fire.

The flowers for teachers
On the first day of school.
The devastation of that first failing grade.
Helping to decorate the tree,
For the first time,
On New Year’s Eve —
Indifferent, in my ecstasy,
To the shame of having wet my pants
For the last time.

Someday I may even forget
A sea of pale balloons
Floating overhead —
Sharp contrast, first day in May,
To flags flapping, vivid as red currants
In Baba’s garden.
Someday, sooner or later,
I will forget.

But then there are the daisies —
Just as there were,
And always will be —
In a small-neck vase
Set on each train compartment
And dining-car table.

I remember seeing
People in black uniforms
At the side of the tracks,
Picking them
Where they grow wild in summer.

At six, my first time away from home,
My parents across the table
On that Trans-Siberian train.
I don’t remember the long trip
Or the short Black Sea vacation —
Only the daisies upon the table.

Flowers that will last
For days, a week perhaps —
Stalks straight, still perky, heads up,
Yolk-yellow button and egg-white petals
Lovesick girls pluck and toss.

Since my childhood,
A country unrecognized.
New Year’s Eve trees
Now rechristened.
Gone the diamond-star medallion,
Along with May Day balloons,
Set floating off to oblivion.

Yet there are daisies still —
Between pairs of travelers,
Strangers or intimates,
Conversing or silently
Scanning the dacha-dotted landscapes.

At a table in every window
As a train whizzes past —
Ever and always, on countless miles
Of crisscrossing tracks
That bind us, a country
Stretching across more than half a continent.

So little left to remind me
What I have lost —
And may forget.

Except the daisies…
Daisies at the windows,
On trains in passing,
Will not let me.

I shan’t forget.
I can’t forget.