I wrote this poem after we had spent half a day with Tamara, our Russian guide, in Moscow touring the Kremlin, Red Square, Lenin’s Tomb, and the Russian Crown Jewels. 

Ready, Set, Believe

Golden onion domes
glisten through the healing
Moscow sunshine. Dazzling
crosses sting naked eyes,
adorn each golden top
spiring above the Kremlin bricks
and replasterd walls.
Crosses peeled off like onion
skins by the whims of yesterday’s
atheistic leaders. Today they signal
Russian patriots
they may believe
in God,
study theology. Our Kremlin
guide, Tamara’s
eyes dance and
laugh as she points
to the detachable
disposable crosses.
Intensely, she recounts
Russian histories of
kings and enemies, created
with hands to scourge or heal
her family, her countrymen, her nation.
Indomitable Tamara,
who lived through woundings,
starvings, slaveries, and freedoms
states she always believed
in God,
always prayed,
with or without the
detachable, disposable
crosses.