My dear mother,
Live as best you can.
This longing, this love of yours touches me,
But still,
You cannot understand at all
How I survive,
And what I do in this world.
There, now it is winter,
And every night
You wear your mind thin under the lonely moon:
As if someone shakes a barren cherry tree
And ashes fall beneath your window.
Dearest!
Can one truly sleep in a storm?
The chimney weeps,
Complains with groans,
The bed with quilt feels like a grave,
It feels as though they carry me to burial.
Like a thousand vile psalters,
The wind sings a requiem
Over the earth,
The earth gathers snow like coins in jars,
And over my grave
I have neither wife nor comrades!
My soul desires spring above all else,
I love the breast of the sea,
When it breathes,
When every splinter looks like a ship sailing,
When turbulent streams unleash their fury.
But a spring I await with fire—
I call it a great revolution.
Only that spring draws me,
I greet it,
And I grieve, dissolve, and suffer.
But ah, this filth—this frozen planet,
Not even the sun often warms it enough,
So I, a poet with a fragile soul,
Grow weary,
Go mad,
Curse,
And lift my glass!
But the time will come,
White-haired mother,
The long-awaited time will come and seize us,
So we do not sit idle—armed side by side,
One with cannon,
Another with pen!
Forget about money,
Do not cling to nothingness!
And what is loss?
You tell me this?
I am not a cow, a stallion, or a donkey
For you to pull me from the stable at will!
The hour will strike,
I myself will step forth,
When the cannon roars upon the planet,
And I will return home, to buy a scarf,
To buy my father whatever he desires…
Now the storm,
Like a thousand vile psalters,
The wind sings a requiem
Over the earth.
The earth gathers snow like coins in jars,
And over my grave
I have neither wife nor comrades!
