Baba Yaga, bored, has been reading
about herself
“Did you know,” she asks Perrun,
who drops by
To talk about the weather, “that I
am often associated
With certain types of mushrooms, a
type of cake
And also a pear? I am kin to evil
Czech wood nymphs
As well as a slow-moving
Lithuanian sort of elf.
I appear in a list of deities in
Mikhail Lomonosov’s
Great work Russiiskaia Grammatika
There are, it says, sometimes three
of me; all
Called Baba Yaga. One of them is
sometimes kind
Which one do you suppose I am?”
Perrun says
“Not the kind one, I think; I have
been here an hour
And you have not offered me any
food; no tea
No mushrooms, no pear, and
certainly no cake.”
