for Joyce
I’ve heard it told of Boris Pasternak—before Zhivago, long before that fameprotected him—in 1938,with Stalin’s purges raging, henchmen tracking
every move he makes, that fall he’s ata writers’ conference where he’ll be blamedhe speaks and, equally, he doesn’t. All speech freightedeither way, the henchmen on his back,
so when he takes the podium, he speaksjust one word: “Thirty”—and, two thousand strong,the writers rise, reciting Shakespeare’s sonnet
Pasternak’s translated: tyrannyresisted one more time. I almost weepto think of it. “Death’s dateless night” retreats. ❖