Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                                        T­he Great Gate of Kiev

                Mussorgsky’s The Great Gate of Kiev is no hymn to the
                people of Ukraine (telegraph.co.uk)

If there was never a Great Gate of Kiev
Except in Mussorgy’s triumphal hymn
There ought to have been, and there will be some day
Trophied with captured Putinista flags

For now

Wherever a Ukrainian enters Kiev
By rail or bus, or in worn-out army boots
He is the Gate, the Knight’s Gate, the Golden gate
With a chapel and the most wonderful bells

And the pictures at an exhibition
Will be ikons of Ukrainian martyrs

Poor Viktor Hartmann!
All that remained of his towering soul
were visions pressed on to paper
hanging in a St. Petersburg gallery.

Mussorgsky advanced his lumbering frame
along the gallery halls
searching for his lost friend.

Sonic images formed in the composer’s mind
singing replicas of Hartmann’s icons:

        An old castle,
        Children quarreling,
        An ox resisting the weight of its cart,
        The Great Gate of Kiev.

Mussorgsky’s notes sound and vanish
as ephemeral as life itself -
passing into the ether only to live anew
with each successive performance.

      Viktor lives!

*October, 2006