Time to share another of my favorite Christian poems with you all. It’s a martyrdom poem by Varlam Shalamov, a victim of the Soviet gulags and also the writer of Kolyma Tales. A few favorite stanza are written out here; the entire poem is typed out below. It’s a little on the long end, but entirely worth it.
“Avvakum in Pustozyorsk” by Varlam Shalamov
The walls of my church
are the ribs of my heart;
it seems life and I
are soon bound to part
.
My cross now rises,
traced with two fingers.
In Pustozyorsk it blazes;
its blaze will linger.
.
I’m glorified everywhere,
vilified, branded;
I have already become
the stuff of legend.
.
I was, people say,
full of anger and spite;
I suffered, I died
for the ancient rite.
.
But this popular verdict
is ugly nonsense;
I hear and reject
the implied censure.
.
The rite is nothing—
neither wrong nor right;
a rite is a trifle
in God’s sight.
.
But they attacked our faith
in the ways of the past,
in all we’d learned as children
and taken to heart.
.
In their holy garments,
in their grand hats,
with a cold crucifix
in their cold hands,
.
in thrall to a terror
clutching their souls,
they drag us to jails
and herd us to scaffolds.
.
We don’t mind about the doctrine
books and their age;
we don’t debate virtues
of fetters and chains.
.
Our dispute is of freedom,
and the right to breathe—
about the Lord’s will
to bind as he please.
.
The healers of souls
chastised our bodies;
while they schemed and plotted,
we ran to the forests.
.
Despite their decrees,
we hurled our words
out of the lion’s mouth
and into the world.
.
We called for just vengeance
against their sins;
along with the Lord,
we sang poems and hymns.
.
The words of the Lord
were claps of thunder.
The Church endures;
it will never go under.
.
And I, unyielding,
reading the Psalter,
was brought to the gates
of the Andronikov Monastery.
.
I was young;
I endured every pain:
hunger, beatings,
interrogations.
.
A winged angel
shut the eyes of the guard,
brought me cabbage soup,
and a hunk of bread.
.
I crossed the threshold—
and I walked free.
Embracing my Exile,
I walked to the east.
.
I held services
by the Amur River,
where I barely survived
the winds and blizzards.
.
They branded my cheeks
with brands of frost;
by a mountain stream
they tore out my nostrils.
.
But the path to the Lord
goes from jail to jail;
the path to the Lord
never changes.
.
And all too few,
since Jesus’s days,
have proved able to bear
God’s all-seeing gaze.
.
Nastasia, Nastasia,
do not despair;
true joy often wears
a garment of tears.
.
Whatever temptations
may beat in your heart,
whatever torments
may rip you apart,
.
walk on in peace,
through a thousand troubles
and fear not the serpent
that bites at your ankles—
.
though not from Eden
has this snake crawled;
it is an envoy of evil
from Satan’s hand.
.
Here, birdsong
is unknown;
here one learns the patience
and the wisdom of stone.
.
I have seen no color
except lingonberry
in fourteen years
spent as a prisoner.
.
But this is not madness,
nor a waking nightmare;
it is my soul’s fortress,
its will and freedom.
.
And now they are leading me
far away in fetters;
my yoke is easy
and my burden grows lighter.
.
My track is swept clean
and dusted with silver;
I’m climbing to heaven
on wings of fire.
.
Through cold and hunger,
through grief and fear
towards God, like a dove,
I will rise from the pyre.
.
O far-away Russia—
I give you my vow
to return to the sky
forgiving my foe.
.
May I be reviled,
and burned at the stake;
may my ashes be cast
on the mountain wind.
.
There is no fate sweeter,
no better end,
than to knock, as ash,
at the door of the human heart.
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