Alexei Navalny photographed in Moscow during a police raid on the office of his Anti-Corruption Foundation.
Freedom is an iron-like flower
by Chris Parsons
(For Alexei Navalny, 1976-2024, lawyer and political dissident, declared dead in
a Russian Arctic prison camp.)
on the last walk of your life
you met the polar wolf
the cloud of your breath
snatched by the freezing wind
taken like so many
even with you gone
czars shiver in palaces of ice
thinking of another Spring
when snows finally thaw
when whitewashed coverlets
are flung aside
we will find a million flowers
Christchurch poet Chris Parsons’ work has appeared in Landfall, Blackmail Press and Poetry NZ.
