Well, rockzmom, I don't know any Russian examples - actually Iknow one Russian example, but first:

Robert Frost's poem, Birches, although long (sorry!) is a great example of the ESSENCE of growing up as a boy, on his own, among other things. Frost's father died of tuberculosis when he was 11 years old, he grew up with his mother and mother's family. To me, this poem captures both memory (the ice falling off the trees, leaving them as they were when he was young) and the way a young boy faces the world - through play on birch trees, he learns to overcome difficulties and bend them to his will - hopefully! Frost's life was tragic, hence the overlay of cold ice bending the trees as well.

Something I didn't know until I went looking: Robert Frost (one of my favorite poets) was actually an ambassador to Russia for awhile!

Birches
by
Robert Frost


When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-coloured
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground,
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm,
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows--
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

from: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/birches/

Theodore Roethke is another of my favorite poets. Here is one which, for better or worse, captures the ESSENCE of his father:

MY PAPA'S WALTZ

The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother's countenance
Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.

from: http://unix.cc.wmich.edu/~cooneys/poems ... .papa.html

and, my Russian being what it is lately, here's my Russian example, by Anna Akhmatova, the ESSENCE of this marriage is made obvious by the poem, without really explaining:

He Loved...

He loved three things in this world:
Evensong, white peacocks and very
Old tattered maps of America.
He despised it when little kids bawled,
Disliked tea served with berries
And women acting hysterical.
… And I was his wife.

in Russian:

Он любил...

Он любил три вещи на свете:
За вечерней пенье, белых павлинов
И стертые карты Америки.
Не любил, когда плачут дети,
Не любил чая с малиной
И женской истерики
...А я была его женой.


Hope this helps a little!

P.S. to all learning English: I went looking for a Russian translation of Birches. Nothing yet, but, here is someone reading the poem, and commentary, in English: http://www.englishcafe.com/blog/birches ... rost-18757