When It Sucks Hard, You Need Poetry

My sister, Life, is today overflowing
And smashing herself in spring rain on our coats,
But people with monocles are not amused
And bite, quite politely, like snakes in the oats.

The older ones have their own reasons for this.
But yours is a comical reason, no doubt:
That under the storm, eyes and lawns appear lilac
And mignonette sweetens the wind from the south.

That when, on your journey in May, you're consulting
The timetable on the Kamyshin line,
The Bible itself is not more exalting.
Your eyes, mesmerized, are to all else blind.

That, setting, the sun has only to highlight
Girls crowding the railway track, as the train slows,
For me to discover it is not my station,
The sun to extend its regrets as it goes.

And splashing a third time, the bell swims behind,
Its 'Sorry, not here' sounding near, further, far.
The burning night filters in under the blind
And the steppe plunges on from the steps to the star;

Winking and blinking, but sweetly somewhere,
My love, like a mirage, and others all sleep
While, splashing along carriage footboards, the heart
Scatters bright windows across the dark steppe.

Pasternak