Changing of the Guards: Irkutsk

They are young, clad in starched, militant green,
the glint of medals speckled over their coats
frantic like faraway stars.
They face the concrete block of a building,
where once, in times before, the cathedral stood.
There is another, young as well, but solemn,
watching over them, and the flame—
oh, the flame,
ignited and savage eternally,
hovering atop a thick, granite pedestal,
ghostly, where nothing else ever stood.

The cathedral with the golden cupolas
glowed on mornings like this, in times before.
Like a river, the cathedral freely traded
with those that believed in its worth.
One brought love for love,
another hope for hope,
and so on.

The square, flat and minimal
is lined with benches and peeling young birches;
the ground golden from leaves fallen,
the ground worn from feet trodden.
I pace over the bricks, once placed over
the thick debris
of the old cathedral blown up,
and the ashes of men from times before that.

A wedding party’s laughter
trickles through the sunshine like glass.
Their morning drinks slosh out of their cups
and onto the stone, heavy.
They write in chalk, their names,
and about their love, on the bricks—
oh, the bricks,
heavy and handled and placed with care
over the old cathedral blown up
in times before.
The rain isn’t coming soon,
so the names will last for a while yet,
and their love too.
A young couple face each other
on the benches, which face the flame,
their hands tangled in their legs like vines.
He whispers something and she laughs,
looking down to a puffy German shepherd hunting for scraps
in an old broken brick.
An aged man hovers nearby with a camera,
his bulbous belly stretching his coat.
Then, a group of children run by to
look at a nearby statue. They gawk at
the site of a sculptured man, boundlessly excited
by the crisp air of the morning,
the sun touching everything, and turning it into gold.

All the while,
the guards keep staring where there is no cathedral.
I leave three red carnations for the Great War
because somewhere, in times before,
it is written about grief and flowers.
The guards squint where the sun rises
just above the concrete block of a building.
They try not to close their eyes, but they do,

and I notice the flapping of the flame—
it sounds like wings upon which something must soar.

to note: In Irkutsk, there is an eternal flame commemorating the soldiers of WWII, known as the Great Patriotic War. There are 21 eternal flame memorials. The flame was fired up on the 30th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War on the 9th May 1975. Soil burned by the fights of 1941 near Moscow was used to ignite the flame.

Siberia, you forged victory together with all people.
(carved into the granite pedestal of the flame)