Like a Russian River

Russian history,
it seems to me,
is much like a Russian river.

It lays unhappily frozen,
obedient within its constraining banks
for a period longer than it can stand.

Then suddenly,
some foreign ray of change
permeates the ice
and the river erupts,
climbing upon itself
moving recklessly down stream
releasing its discontent,
taking everything with it,
the good and the bad,
until it finds its kind of peace
and flows quietly
with all appearances of normality.

But winter will come again
and how soon
no one knows
for sure.

Frederick R. Andresen
2000
Photo by Christopher Harrington

Excerpted from “Walking on Ice, An American Businessman in Russia”