<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><p style="width: 536px;" class=""><font style="font-style: normal;" class="">Everything is <span class="gmail_default">P</span>lundered, <span class="gmail_default">B</span>etrayed, <span class="gmail_default">S</span>old</font></p><p align="left" class=""><big style="font-style: normal;" class=""><font size="4" class="">Everything is plundered, betrayed, sold,<br class="">Death's great black wing scrapes the air,<br class="">Misery gnaws to the bone.<br class="">Why then do we not despair?<br class=""><br class="">By day, from the surrounding woods,<br class="">cherries blow summer into town;<br class="">at night the deep transparent skies<br class="">glitter with new galaxies.<br class=""><br class="">And the miraculous comes so close<br class="">to the ruined, dirty houses --<br class="">something not known to anyone at all,<br class="">but wild in our breast for centuries.</font></big></p><p align="left" class=""><span style="font-style: normal;" class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Anna Akhmatova<br class=""><br class=""><span class="gmail_default"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>(Translated</span> by Stanley Kunitz)</span></p><div class=""><font size="2" class=""><i class=""><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;" class=""><br class=""></span></i></font></div></div></body></html>