Today I have so much to do:
I must kill memory once and for all,
I must turn my soul to stone,
I must learn to live again—
Unless... Summer's ardent rustling
Is like a festival outside my window.

Translated by Judith Hemschemeyer from Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova (1989) - Requiem; 1935-1940 (1963; 1987)