We inherit from our parents much that flows beneath the surface of our immediate awareness: temperment, personality, ways of looking at and moving through the world.

My mother watched virtually no television and only occasionally went to movies or watched them on tv. One movie that she did love though was Doctor Zhivago. She also loved the book and the music from the movie. My own interest in Russian literature that began in high school no doubt was influenced by the place that Pasternak and Doctor Zhivago had in our household.

For a few years when I was in high school, I read almost exclusively Russian writers: Solzhenitsyn, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Pasternak. Looking back now I can see that the way literary, religious, and political themes interconnect and mingle in Russian literature resonated with my interests and inclinations and, of course, helped form them.

I came across this poem by Pasternak on the internet while researching my favorite Russian poet, Osip Mandelstam. I mention this because I really know nothing about this poem: the occasion for its writing, the translator, how it fits in with other Pasternak poems. I only know that I liked it very much the first time I read it. And that it seems appropriate for winter in the North Country..

Enjoy!

Winter Night

It snowed and snowed ,the whole world over,
Snow swept the world from end to end.
A candle burned on the table;
A candle burned.

As during summer midges swarm
To beat their wings against a flame
Out in the yard the snowflakes swarmed
To beat against the window pane

The blizzard sculptured on the glass
Designs of arrows and of whorls.
A candle burned on the table;
A candle burned.

Distorted shadows fell
Upon the lighted ceiling:
Shadows of crossed arms, of crossed legs-
Of crossed destiny.

Two tiny shoes fell to the floor
And thudded.
A candle on a nightstand shed wax tears
Upon a dress.

All things vanished within
The snowy murk-white, hoary.
A candle burned on the table;
A candle burned.

A corner draft fluttered the flame
And the white fever of temptation
Upswept its angel wings that cast
A cruciform shadow

It snowed hard throughout the month
Of February, and almost constantly
A candle burned on the table;
A candle burned.

Listening with a pencil and my ear, these are the lines I marked:

Distorted shadows fell
Upon the lighted ceiling:
Shadows of crossed arms, of crossed legs-
Of crossed destiny.

I actually could have picked any of the stanzas as a favorite in this poem. The internal echo caused by repeating the word crossed, and the yin and yang of shadows and light in the first two lines just perfectly encapsulates the overall mood of the whole.

What were your favorite lines?