Poem – Dostoevsky’s Wife

Greetings! I’m writing this late on what has ben a very snowy and delightful day. The snow is actually what inspired me to share this poem I’m about to share with you. The delight, not so much… 😀 You see, this poem isn’t exactly happy. I wrote it last semester based on a random prompt that my poetry professor gave me. She told me that apparently the famous Russian writer Dostoevsky was once so poor that he sold his wife’s coat for a loaf of bread to keep his starving family alive. I don’t know if it’s a true fact, but that image caught my imagination and got me thinking. Dostoevsky might have stayed hunger’s pangs for a while, but the loss of a coat would’ve invited death in another, just as cruel, way, in the form of cold. This poem contains my ponderings on that fact…

~

Woe to the woman huddled

in the gutted belly of this

wind-trembled house.

~

Mouth to frigid breast her

child drinks, cling to warmth

slipping away like the moon-pulled tide.

~

Wild ice dance, blurring blue eyes,

her hair is like a weeping willow.

‘Hush my child, hush my child’,

croon like mourning doves.

~

Her husband has sold her coat

for a loaf of rye bread.

But how will this bread wage war against winter?

~

So, there you have it. It was such a random but thought-provoking image, I just had to write about it. And today it seemed appropriate to share, given that my world is currently frosted over with snow and ice. 🙂

I’d love to hear your thoughts about this poem in the comments! Have you ever learnt a random fact from history that stuck in your brain like this one?