And now, Anna Akhmatova

From here.

Context: possibly -- her life in opposition to the Bolsheviks and then Stalin, losing many friends to the regime. She stuck it out instead of emigrating, though, and in the end, became a beloved cultural icon for the Soviets.

Lot's Wife

by Anna Akhmatova

And the just man trailed God's shining agent,
over a black mountain, in his giant track,
while a restless voice kept harrying his woman:
"It's not too late, you can still look back

at the red towers of your native Sodom,
the square where once you sang, the spinning-shed,
at the empty windows set in the tall house
where sons and daughters blessed your marriage-bed."
A single glance: a sudden dart of pain
stitching her eyes before she made a sound . . .
Her body flaked into transparent salt,
and her swift legs rooted to the ground.

Who will grieve for this woman? Does she not seem
too insignificant for our concern?
Yet in my heart I never will deny her,
who suffered death because she chose to turn.

I admit this one is new to me

So I decided to spend at least part of the month looking for poets I don't know. Sometimes I do a search for a couple of qualifiers. This time it was "Indian woman poet" becuase I don't think I know any.

When I read about Arundhathi Subramaniam in Wikipedia, I wasn't expecting to like any of her poems, becaquse I expected them to be spiritually oriented and I'm rarely (not never) interested in that sort of poem. But this one is funny and I like it.

From here.

5:46, Andheri Local

by Arundhathi Subramaniam

In the women's compartment
of a Bombay local
we seek
no personal epiphanies.
Like metal licked by relentless acetylene
we are welded—
dreams, disasters,
germs, destinies,
flesh and organza,
odours and ovaries
A thousand-limbed
million-tongued, multi spoused
Kali on wheels.

When I descend
I could choose
to dice carrots
or a lover
I postpone the latter.

Bulgarian step dancing. Kind of

The dancers in this video are wearing costumes that look like a third-hand rendition of Irish step-dancing costumes and they are dancing funny too.