I love you, Peter's creation,  
where the bright Neva's waters flow  
and carry through time a revelation —  
that this City is Love's living call.

Here stone breathes, the bridge resounds,  
the dome is like the eye of God.  
Here every step, as in the silence, sounds  
a prayer, hidden from the Final Word.

The Fontanka runs like the speech of John,  
Isaac's cathedral groans, a muffled psalm,  
and the bronze apostle, free of all deceit,  
whispers: "The world is not the sword, but Home."

I love you, O living town,  
where the cross does not crush, but shines.  
You are a temple where God is not above, but near,  
where even the night breathes Christ.

***

**I am the city not of tsars, but of Awaiting,**  
I am Dust and Light, I am the Path and the Crossing.  
Palaces stand in me like penitence,  
and every stone remembers the essence of God.

I have known bonfires, and bullets, and frost,  
in me a song was forged from the moan of ruin.  
I froze through — so that not in bronze a God  
might walk as Man, but in those who grew Strong.

I have known the fire that scorched the hearts,  
and the ice that stopped the breath in the chest.  
I went still — so that you would hear the Dog  
that barks in the darkness over Repentance.

I have seen: in the temple — gold and fear,  
and in the alley — a woman holding light.  
Christ is coming. And not within my tents.  
But there, in the "no." Where all is against the law.

***

**I am the Angel. I stand above the dome,**  
yet I do not gaze from the heights, but down — into you.  
I do not guard the empire, nor the land —  
I keep alive in you the living I.

I am not the crown of triumph over others,  
not a symbol of power, not even over the self.  
I wait for the garments of "ego" to fall,  
and you to rise — like light in living water.

In me there is no power, no pride, no ban.  
In me — only Light, that softly whispers: "You may…"  
I remember each one who was and is no more,  
who fell in the mire and rose into the Divine.

I am not the sign of the final eclipse,  
not a reliquary for the soulless gaze.  
I am the Light within the abandoned decay  
that gives you birth again to Life.

***

**I am the city. I stand between two ages,**  
where snow and ash converge at the break of dawn.  
My bridges are like arms beneath the cross,  
my streets like lines in the Book of Light.

I remember how they led the Maker to his terror,  
and how a soldier walked in his greatcoat toward love.  
I have heard: in the dungeons and in the halls  
the selfsame weeping — and the selfsame gaze.

In me resounded Lenin and Rasputin,  
the chanting choir, and the wordless firing squad.  
But through the ages, through each "let us forget,"  
One walks alone — in Love, without a fist.

I have known the cold breath of empires,  
and famine too, and a hundred black dates.  
But in each darkness, in each dying out  
I felt — my Brother in God is on his way.

He is not in the icons — in the bolted stairwells.  
He is not in museums — in the bread upon the table.  
He is in those who walked, demanding no revenge,  
but simply bore the Light through the dusky ash.

I am Petersburg. I am made all of awaitings.  
In me resounds no hymn, but the silence.  
I wait for no feast, for no repentances —  
but to be at the Meeting, where you and God are one.

***

**(Christ answers the City)**  
I hear you.  
I was always here — in you.  
In your courtyards, where a mother weeps over bread.  
In the silence,  
in the firing squad,  
in the blue,  
where the angel watches —  
but does not wave the heavens.

I was in you when you summoned tsars.  
When you gave birth to poets and to crosses.  
I was — when you drove your own like a beast,  
and laid an infant's swaddling in the ice.

You are a city of pain.  
But through this pain  
I walked.  
I did not leave. I stood — and I wait.  
You called Me — yet you climbed onto the throne,  
forgetting that the throne —  
is just a cross in a different row.

But I forgive.  
I stand beside the waters.  
In me there is no anger,  
only revelation.  
You lived in darkness —  
but the Light is already coming  
through the cracks of the old creation.

I will not come —  
I am here.  
I am in that window,  
where the candle burns — not for style, but for grief.  
I am in that "Forgive me"  
you whisper in the silence,  
when you can no longer believe in pride.

I am — here.  
In all your crosses and your vaults.  
In the tears, in the palaces,  
in the stain of old blood.  
I am in everyone  
who no longer waits for an exodus,  
but has simply become  
*love without conditions*.
