The Poetry of History

Dostoevsky and Tolstoy---
I had been elucidated too---
Never met.

Before I knew this,
I thought their meeting fated,
Yet after I knew it,
It became clear
It was the poetry of history.

Two witnesses, of equal skill,
Speak... never having met
To cross their antlers
And thereby destroy their works.

Providence moves with such a hand
Through history, to cause such 
Fascinating little miracles.
For unimpeded by the other
Each made their witness of Mother Russia
In her soon collapse.

Yet, also, each man had died
Like the merciful men in scripture
Before God's wrath ever came nigh them.