* * *
We are bent over like unwatered flowers.
For all our aplomb, we face the ground.
We’re not dried up, but in our Book of Hours
the next page is desert sand.
We have brought forth battlements and diseases
and now are bragging: we have won!
Age after age iron only increases.
But it’s alright. Everything’s – the path of a grain!
For when we have sung ad nauseam
hollow freedom’s wingless tune,
sewer waters will open, and someone
will be born again out of their foam.
--George Yaropolsky
translated by D. M. Thomas
Îðèãèíàë: http://www.stihi.ru/2014/01/14/5529