Veronica

She liked this poem, I remember, even though she disdained the George Kline translation:

Once more we're living by the bay,

and clouds of black smoke drift, daily, above us.

Our own Vesuvius has cleared its throat;

volcanic ash is settling in the side streets.

Our windowpanes have rattled to its roaring.

Some day we too will be shrouded with ashes.

And when that happens, at that awful moment,

I'd like to take a streetcar to the outskirts

of town and find your house;

and if, after a thousand years,

a swarm of scientists should come here

to dig our city out, I hope they'll find me,

cloaked with the ashes of our modern epoch,

and everlastingly within your arms.

—Joseph Brodsky