Reading a Russian novel on cold winter nights

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Farewell, by Ivan Aivazovskiy, 1869

Reading a Russian Novel

The biggest book I’ve read
lies anchored on my lap
page twenty-two is open
I’m reading from the top

It’s only been ten minutes,
the Count repeats ma chère
to every corseted figure
who enters the sitting room there

My legs are tucked beneath them
parading in and out
and tickled by their tiny feet
I am wondering about

Natashas, Anyas, Sonyas --
the stream of names I wade in
and whether I’ll remember them
without a notepad aiding.

The samovar is steaming
the woodstove is too warm
my eyelids are so heavy
that fairydust starts to swarm

And into sleep I tumble
with sugarplum Tinkerbells
in lace and sleeves and satin
and all their charming spells

They carry me to Russia
like I am Gulliver’s wife
and like him I am foreign
unaccustomed to this life

It turns out all is huge though --
the land, the names, the wars
and I'm the one who's shrinking
under masted monuments to czars

I stretch and wake to sail through
these thousand pages here,
all afghaned in my deck chair
until this time next year.

Listen to a podcast of this poem here.

-The Black Sea, by  Ivan Aivazovskiy

 Moonlit Night, by Ivan Aivazovskiy

 Ships at Anchor, Ivan Aivazovskiy
 

Ivan Aivazovskiy (1817-1900 -- I've corrected this, which I had previously as 1870-1900. Thanks, Arti!) has left more than 6,000 paintings, most of them of the sea. (What is it with overachieving Russians?) He was practically canonized by the Russian Navy. The painting "The Black Sea," three paintings up, is considered his masterpiece. But frankly, one is as transporting as the next. And apparently -- get this -- he painted the sea from memory.

I

-Chaos, The Creation, 1848, by Ivan Aivazovskiy

About this painting "Newspapers wrote: 

'Pope Gregory XVI has purchased Aivazovsky’s picture Chaos 

and had it hung in the Vatican, where only the pictures 

of the world's greatest artists are considered worthy of a place. 

His Chaos is generally held to be quite unlike anything seen before; 

it is said to be a miracle of artistry'”.

~ From the site embedded in "Ivan Aivazovskiy"

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