Sometimes I feel that all those fallen soldiers,
Who never left the bloody battle zones,
Have not been buried to decay and molder,
But turned into white cranes that softly groan.
And thus, until these days since those bygone times
They have been flying calling us with cries.
Isn’t it why we often hear those sad chimes
And calmly freeze, while looking in the skies?
A tired flock of cranes still flies – their wings flap.
Birds glide into the twilight, roaming free.
In their formation I can see a small gap –
It might be so, that space is meant for me.
The day shall come, when in the mist of ashen
My final rest among those cranes I’ll find,
From the skies calling – in a bird-like fashion –
All those of you, who I’ll have left behind.
Sometimes I feel that all those fallen soldiers,
Who never left the bloody battle zones,
Have not been buried to decay and molder,
But turned into white cranes that softly groan…
--- Rasul Gazmatov (English translation by an American poet, Leo Schwartzberg)