Wait for me, a poem by Konstantin Simonov.

Post 616 - The Soviet poet and novelist Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov (1915 - 1979) is best known for his patriotic verse dealing with World War II and for his vivid prose descriptions of Soviet troops in action during the war. He was born in St. Petersburg and received a degree in literature from the Gorky Institute of Literature in Moscow in 1939. Simonov then became a member of the Communist party, and in 1941 was called to military duty as a correspondent for the journal Red Star. His wartime dispatches were read by a wide audience, and he was awarded several medals for his work, including the Stalin Prize. After World War II, Simonov traveled extensively as a member of various literary and journalistic delegations, visiting Japan, China, the United States, and Western Europe. A member of the editorial boards of various Soviet journals and publishing houses, he twice served as a deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. In 1968, he and other high-ranking members of the Union of Soviet Writers refused to sign a statement of official support for the government's invasion of Czechoslovakia; yet he remained an esteemed member of the Soviet literary establishment. Throughout the 1970s, he served as secretary of the Union of Writers. He died in Moscow in 1979.

Wait for me by Konstantin Simonov.

Wait for me and I’ll return, only wait very hard.
Wait when you are filled with sorrow as you watch the yellow rain.
Wait when the wind sweeps the snowdrifts.
Wait in the sweltering heat.
Wait when others have stopped waiting, forgetting their yesterdays.
Wait even when from afar no letters come for you.
Wait even when others are tired of waiting.

Wait for me and I’ll return, but wait patiently.
Wait even when you are told that you should forget.
Wait even when my mother and son think I am no more.
And when friends sit around the fire drinking to my memory
Wait and do not hurry to drink to my memory too.

Wait for me and I’ll return, defying every death.
And let those who do not wait say that I was lucky.
They will never understand that in the midst of death
You with your waiting saved me.
Only you and I will know how I survived:
It was because you waited as no one else did.