The Sweater of Vladimir Ussachevsky

Facing the wind of the avenues one spring evening in New York, I wore under my thin jacket a sweater given me by the wife of a genial Manchurian. The warmth in that sweater changed the indifferent city block by block. The buildings were mountains that fled as I approached them. The traffic became sheep and cattle milling in muddy pastures. I could feel around me the large movements of men and horses. It was spring in Siberia or Mongolia, wherever I happened to be. Rough but honest voices called to me out of that solitude: they told me we are all tired of this coiling weight, the oppression of a long winter; that it was time to renew our life, burn the expired contracts, elect new governments. The old Imperial sun has set, and I must write a poem to the Emperor. I shall speak it like the man I should be, an inhabitant of the frontier, clad in sweat-darkened wool, my face stained by wind and smoke. Surely the Emperor and his court will want to know what a fine and generous revolution begins tomorrow in one of his remote provinces... (1967)