Russian Soul

Misunderstood
unmeasured
vast as the fields of precious rye,
deep as the wilderness of taiga forests
that run from Europe to the Chinese borders,
that’s borderless like the cloudless sky.

Serene
yet fierce
it’s kind, blue-eyed and blond-haired.
It’s raised on fairy-tales of Pushkin’s learned cat,
that walks upon the chain around the mighty oak,
on songs and balalaika tunes that played by village folk.

Forced out
to a foreign country
it yearns for a piece of home. It searches
but cannot settle and weeps by the tallest birch
for a life that once there was,
dreaming of banya, vodka, garmon' i losos’.