Стихотворения

Once again silent for almost two decades Vera turns to poetry again in 1983. She writes four poems in Russian, all dedicated to R.H. No longer about Petersburg, the new poems detail the long and difficult journey of her life, now made somewhat easier by her new found friend. There is renewed joy, a sense of the seasons, of summer coming after the winter. The days without her friend are empty and gray, and the poet asks forgiveness for perhaps loving her too tenderly. Her final poem written in Russian is both a summation of her own literary career and a recognition and tribute to Russian Berlin, which has been her home for the past sixty years. “You won’t recognize die old streets of Berlin,” but Vera remembers them and her own modest literary efforts of the 1920’s:

This tone has long since passed…
A new city has risen from the ruins,
Only I have not grown weary
Of recalling you, old Berlin!

Something of a new life occurs in 1983 for Vera Lourie. She is inspired to write in German and to date has written over thirty poems which she calls Tagebuch einer Seele. Responding to the presence and artistic sensitivity of her special friend, Vera first attemts to shower her with love and affection. One is struck by the intensity of the emotion and the singular focus of the poet’s vision. Yet for readers of the Russian poems, the themes begin to echo her earlier works and follow a similar progression. There is the love, so all-consuming that it cannot be matched. The ensuing disapointment and the realization of human limitations lead the poet to the sanctuary of memory and imagination — to her Muse and poetry. There is her Marchenland in the world of music and poetry “Ich war nicht mehr alt, ich war nicht mehr krank.” In her poem “Es war, es ist” Vera’s Fee bridges the past and present, Petersburg and Berlin. For too many years Vera’s poetic fairy has been kept hidden in her desk drawer. Finally she has found a way to let her out and share with us the magical world of words which has sustained her through the long journey of life.

I wish to express my gratitude to the Alexander von Humbold-Stiftung und Middlebury College for their generous support of my work. I am indebted to Nina Berberova who sent me in search of Vera Lourie and to Aleksandr Baxrax who helped me find her. Dmitry Paramanov shared my sense of discovery as he helped decipher the notebooks and typed the Russian poems. Most of all, I thank Vera, whose youthful enthusiasm and support for this collection were my constant inspiration. She has opened the diaries of her soul to me, and through them I have come to appreciate my own life and love all the more.

Thomas R. Beyer, Jr.

Heidelberg-Berlin-Middlebury 1984-1985

ПЕТРОГРАД 1920–1921

Христос и Арлекин

Посвящается Н.Н. Евреинову