Need Strength for the Winter? Read This Russian Poem. (Writing Prompt Included.)

Forget “Winter is Coming.” In Novosibirsk, it’s here.

The golden leaves that made this past month so gorgeous have peaked and fallen, and street cleaners have already raked them up into sacks and hauled them away. On Wednesday we had our first snow.

Granted, it’s not a real Siberian winter yet — we still have days of -30° to look forward to — but every day the earth falls deeper into sleep.

This is the time of year when it’s easy to get gloomy. The fiery reds, golds and oranges of fall are gone, and there’s no breathtaking blankets of snow to hide the fact. Everything’s brown. Dead. Ugly. (Especially in this Soviet-designed industrial city, where the trees are about the only thing reminding you that life isn’t made of concrete.)

But this year, I’ve got a secret stash of beauty to get me through the season. And I’d like to share it with you.

Spoiler alert: it’s a poem.

In fact, it’s the first poem I ever read in Russian. Eight lines and two stanzas long, it’s a brief but memorable nature poem by Apollon Nikolayevich Maikov, a Russian lyric poet of the 19th century.

I can’t find a good translation of it online, so you’ll have to make do with my awkward literal one:

Autumn leaves circle in the wind,
Autumn leaves shriek in alarm:
“All’s dying, all’s dying! You’re black and bare,
Oh forest of our birth, your end has come!”

But the kingly forest doesn’t hear the alarm.
Beneath the dark azure of bleak skies
It’s swaddled in mighty dreams,
And within it grows strength for the new spring.

(If only you could hear the music of it!)

One verse in particular is echoing in my mind this season: “Всё гибнет!” which could be understood literally as all is dying, or — as I prefer — All things must pass; all things must return to dust.

It’s a sobering thought, and perhaps you’re wondering how this could possibly help you get through the winter.

The answer is in the next stanza: The dying forest is swaddled in dreams, gathering strength for the new spring.

The leaves are busy panicking over the apparent death of the forest, but the forest isn’t listening; rather, it’s hibernating. Dreaming. Nurturing the seeds of new beginnings.

Autumn is a good time to reflect on the impermanence of things. Of ourselves, our situations, our surroundings, and all else we take for granted. It’s also a good time to nurture seeds: to re-evaluate the choices we’ve made and reconsider the directions in which we’re headed.

Are there some old, shriveled things we need to let go of?

Do we need to slow down, listen, and let ourselves be “swaddled” by the grandeur of our deepest dreams?

Take a moment to go somewhere quiet and think about Life for a while. Look out a window, and turn your eye to the natural world … even if it’s only a spider plant on a windowsill or a fistful of grass creeping up through the sidewalk.

Take a walk, if you can. Contemplate.

Then come back and write a poem. Preferably a “nature” poem — and preferably something that reflects on endings, beginnings, impermanence, or the crossroads. This is the season for all four.

A Breath of November

Chimes speckle the windflow
from the back porch to the barn,
ebbing and flowing, raspy
with the swirling of leaves.
Oh, be silent, and listen:
do you hear the earth dreaming?
She breathes in the lulls,
and breathes out the gusts, and dreams
in silver chimes.
Don’t wake her: be still,
and perhaps you’ll hear your answer
in the language of earth asleep.

That’s mine, written at a crossroads. Now it’s your turn. Go off and write — and feel free to share your poem in the comments.

(And please … if you know any other poems that can help us in the Northern Hemisphere get through the winter, do share!)