Words and Verse
Chechnya
“Roses, roses, wither brown
Bow your weary petals down.”`
Little girls sing and play in
The sunlight of southern Russia's summer...
Dancing an airy Krakovyak, swaying
Laughing.
Smiling,
As their head-coverings glow in the parching sun,
speckled red with roses,
Parents watch, with vodka to douse noon.
Their young voices mingle in the verse of a tune...
Лишь розы увядают As soon as roses wither
Амврозией дыша Their breath ambrosia yields
В Элизий улетает Their airy souls fly thither
Их легкая душа To the Elysian fields
They sing,
They dance, feet mimicking
The swift wind of the swaying wood
As though the blades of grass
Were trees. They cannot
Hear the footsteps pass
In the wood.
He approaches wearing a heavy
Tumbled, dun-gray vest through the wood.-
Sweating as he watches, listening
In the wood
Roses, little roses, come
Fly to your Elysium.
He grins up, bearing what teeth he has left
In his mouth like fangs in his head,
Reaching into his vest, he slithers,
A snake out through the wood.
Like twining heathers,
They join hands in a circle,
Around the eldest in the ring
Flinging roses to clapping parents
As they sing their song:
И там, где волны сонны There, where the waters vagrant
Забвение несут, Oblivion bear in dreams,
Их тени, благовонны, Their shadows honey-fragrent
Над Летою цветут. Bloom over Lethe's streams.
He runs to them and flings
off the overcoat, Clutching his vest
Parents gasp swaying a moment numb
As the last refrain of the children sings,
He approaches them.
“Roses, wither. Roses bloom
After death in nethergloom.
Roses, roses, wither brown,
Bow-- Their voices, sink and drown,
shipwrecked in the flood of his as
He cries “For Chechnya!”
And pulls something from his vest...
The next day gleaming blades of glass,
And burnt and charred head-coverings
Rose-speckled, fire-shredded, and cold in the grass,
Strewn round as though writhing in rings
And a little scorched finger, pointed accusingly at the sky,
And an old overcoat by the wood's edge,
Ruffling, rolling and rumpling
Like a black flag in the in the gusts a-grumbling
All told the tale
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Chechnya
Chechnya
