You ll Find Your Way to Shoybulak

A cycle of poems «Whispers of Mari El»

When cities fade and stars grow dim,
And all your songs are sung for Him -
When silence cuts like winter’s blade,
And every path begins to fray…
A whisper calls through pines so tall:
“Child, you’ll find your way to Shoybulak.”

The maps may lie, the roads may end,
But blood still knows where roots descend.
No monument will mark the place -
Just birch bark scars and hoof-worn trace.

You’ll find your way to Shoybulak,
Where dawn breaks soft on broken track.
Where grandmothers once swept the snow,
And sang the old ones safe below.
Though no one lives behind those doors,
The land still keeps its ancient scores.
Through storm and time, through loss and lack -
You’ll find your way to Shoybulak.

I left at seventeen with dreams
Of concrete towers, roaring streams
Of strangers’ voices, bright machine -
To vanish into what has been.
But years wore thin like threadbare sleeves,
And none could name what I believed.
Then came a dream of fields unkempt,
And someone weeping, unanointed, bent.

The maps may lie, the roads may end,
But blood still knows where roots descend.
No monument will mark the place -
Just birch bark scars and hoof-worn trace.

You’ll find your way to Shoybulak,
Where dawn breaks soft on broken track.
Where grandmothers once swept the snow,
And sang the old ones safe below.
Though no one lives behind those doors,
The land still keeps its ancient scores.
Through storm and time, through loss and lack -
You’ll find your way to Shoybulak.

I walked the lane in autumn grey,
Past fence posts bowed and rusted hay.
A dog barked once - then went away.
No hand to shake, no word to say.
But in the yard where lilacs died,
A single rose still dared to rise.
And as the wind began to speak,
It called me by the name I seek.

Oh, carry home the scattered dust,
The lullabies they tried to hush.
Let every exile, lost and scarred,
Know there’s a field that waits unmarred.
For even when the world denies,
The soil remembers who you are.
And if you fall before you come -
Your bones will know the way back home.

So when the night grows long and cold,
And stories fade like embers old…
Just close your eyes. Breathe deep and slow.
Feel earth beneath you start to glow.
No signpost leads, no GPS -
Just heart, and wind, and memory.
And in the dark, a voice will crack:
“You’ve found your way to Shoybulak.”