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…
सारस
कभी-कभी लगता है मुझको वे सैनिक रक्तिम युद्ध-भूमि से लौट न जो आए नहीं मरे वे वहाँ बने मानो सारस उड़े गगन में, श्वेत पंख सब फैलाए।
उन्हीं दिनों से, बीते हुए जमाने से उड़े गगन में, गूँजे उनकी आवाजें क्या न इसी कारण ही अक्सर चुप रहकर भारी मन से हम नीले नभ को ताकें ?
आज, शाम के घिरते हुए अँधेरे में देखूँ धुँध-कुहासे में सारस उड़ते, अपना दल-सा एक बनाए उसी तरह जैसे जब थे मानव, भू पर डग भरते।
वे उड़ते हैं, लंबी मंजिल तय करते और पुकारें जैसे नाम किसी के वे, शायद इनकी ही पुकार से इसीलिए शब्द हमारी भाषा के मिलते-जुलते ?
उड़ते जाते हैं सारस-दल थके-थके धुँध-कुहासे में भी, जब दिन ढलता है, उस तिकोण में उनके जरा जगह खाली वह तो मेरे लिए, मुझे यह लगता है।
वह दिन आएगा, मैं सारस-दल के संग हल्के नील अँधेरे में उड़ जाऊँगा, उन्हें सारसों की ही भाँति पुकारूँगा छोड़ जिन्हें मैं इस धरती पर जाऊँगा।
--- Rasul Gazmatov (English translation by an American poet, Leo Schwartzberg)
How did they kill my grandmother? This is how they killed my grandmother: In the morning a tank Rolled up to the city bank.
One hundred and fifty Jews of the town. Weightless from a whole year's starvation. Pale, with the pangs of death upon them. Came there, carrying bundles. Polizei and young German soldiers Cheerfully herded the old men and old women, And led them, clanking with pots and pans. Led them far out of town.
But my diminutive grandmother, Lilliputian, My seventy-year-old grandmother, Swore at the Germans, Cursed like a trooper,
Yelled at them where I was. She cried: “My grandson's at the front. Just you dare Lay hands on me. Those are our guns that you hear, Bochel!”
Grandmother wept and shouted And walked. And then started Shouting again. From every window rose a din. Ivanovs and Andreyevnas leant down, Sidorovnas and Petrovnas wept:
“Keep it up, Polina Matveyevna! You just show them. Give it them straight!” They clamoured: “What's there to be so scared About this German enemy!” And so they decided to kill my grandmother, While they were still passing through the town.
A bullet kicked up her hair. A grey lock floated down. And my grandmother fell to the ground. That's how they did it to her.
Yet to die. Unalone still. For now your pauper-friend is with you. Together you delight in the grandeur of the plains, And the dark, the cold, the storms of snow.
Live quiet and consoled In gaudy poverty, in powerful destitution. Blessed are those days and nights. The work of this sweet voice is without sin.
Misery is he whom, like a shadow, A dog’s barking frightens, the wind cuts down. Poor is he who, half-alive himself Begs his shade for pittance.
--- Osip Mandelstam (Translated by John High and Matvei Yankelevich)
We live, not sensing our own country beneath us,
Ten steps away they dissolve, our speeches,
But where enough meet for half-conversation,
The Kremlin hillbilly is our preoccupation.
They’re like slimy worms, his fat fingers,
His words, as solid as weights of measure.
In his cockroach moustaches there’s a hint
Of laughter, while below his top boots gleam.
Round him a mob of thin-necked henchmen,
He pursues the enslavement of the half-men.
One whimpers, another warbles,
A third miaows, but he alone prods and probes.
He forges decree after decree, like horseshoes –
In groins, foreheads, in eyes, and eyebrows.
Wherever an execution’s happening though –
there’s raspberry, and the Ossetian’s giant torso.
It’s the last time, when I dare
To cradle your image in my mind,
To wake a dream by my heart, bare,
With exultation, shy and air,
To cue your love that's left behind.
The years run promptly; their fire
Changes the world, and me, and you.
For me, you now are attired
In dark of vaults o’er them who died,
For you -- your friend extinguished too.
My dear friend, so sweet and distant,
Take farewell from all my heart,
As takes a wid in a somber instant,
As takes a friend before a prison
Will split those dear friends apart.
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.
1-
In the islands, the hunter
Roams all day long
But no luck for him
And the courses himself
What's he going to do
How is he to serve
He cannot be cheerful
So what
He'll try to aim better
So the hunter goes to warmer waters
Where the fish were frolicking in the beautiful weather
There on the shore.....
2-
You, my eagle with blue-black wings
Where have you been flying
for so Long
I was flying there over the mountains
Where it all was silence.
This song was taken from the movie Dersu Uzala directed by Akira Kurosawa.