Poem: “Winter”

Here it is, my dearest winter,
dearer than the fall or spring.
Here it is, my native country,
where I’m always wintering.

Here are soldiers, soft as cotton,
but in khaki head to toe.
I’m to blame for their misfortune,
don’t allow them in my home—

which is why they’re running, running
all across our hard-white land,
like they’ll run along that shoreline
where their days will one day end.

Translated from the Russian by Boris Dralyuk.

Aleksey Savrasov, Winter Road, oil on canvas, ca. 1870