Fulfilling Anna's Dream

thousands march in the square
as Putin gathers his strongmen,
his political artillery lined up to shoot them down
in cold blood in the street, masked, they
empty the shelves of Moscow to starve
the thousands who will not sit down
will go home only to rest and eat the
last crumbs in the breadbox before
heading to the square again.
They will endure.


(I am reading about Anna Akhmatova, a Russian poet who suffered terribly under the Russian tyranny. She died in 1966.)