What peeked out from Ariadna's shawl
were different narratives
from those that lurked
in Gogol's overcoat:
gypsy choruses, the tabor Pushkin
wrote of longingly, violins
and tamborines, revelries
with whirling girls
in gaudy skirts, with unwashed braids
and flashing beads;
proud statelessness of nomad folk
defiant of cliches
('their loose and lustful ways,
their lawlessness...')
that they would nonetheless
embrace if so inclined,
upon a whim...
What unfurled from Ariadna's shawl
were lines of gauche young girls,
not even Russian, yet entranced
by folklore and the sarafan,
while she, herself a girl again,
dictated choreographies,
imperiously vodka-sodden,
mistress of her coryphees,
holding court a world away
from saints' days on obscure estates.
How we danced, so ardent
in our awkwardness, to naive
canticles from tsarist villages,
conjured from a tattered shawl
to join hands with the characters
that spilled from Gogol's overcoat,
formations on parquet.
Summoned by a message sent too late
to walk in her cortege,
astonished more by news of her longevity
than her demise, I'm visited
by phantasms of name-days in the cemetery,
Ariadna with her stave
marshalling the costumed shades
to rhythms of the nineteenth century,
nostalgic melodies - a throng made young
converging on the grand duchess,
her magic shawl.