Wednesday, July 1, 2015

My translation of Mozgovoy's poem No. 18

It so happened that this and the previous poem ("To Mother") were coincidentally translated by me on the 40th day since Mozgovoy's death on May 23, which happens to be the holiday of Vladimir according to the Czech calendar.

As this daemon of this poem says, Mozgovoy's fate was a life of a soldier and fighter, but his life was also a bridge--from one Russia (a Russia of new dead souls) to Novorossiya, a Russia New and Arisen. Russian reborn. Mozgovoy's own personal and physical life is now over. This personal life has become ashes in the steppes of Cossacks' Don. Spiritually, Mozgovoy has, however, become a fire of Novorossiya--the light that illuminates the road ahead.

Burning bridges

When the bridges are burned,
The watercourse stays and separates
The two disjointed shores.
Only the wind is moaning a complaint,

Still we are trying to find a ford
In the streams of time bygone.
But one cannot enter any river twice,
And there is so much of what divides.

Fate’s bridges do thus burn,
And its fire clouds, fogs, conceals,
Thus our mistakes with long tails
Come out of lie and deceit.

But if you want to undo all,
There is nothing to find or see.
For you cannot even perceive
Fate which now a different life lives.

The river grows deeper, there’s no ford,
Only the ashes that were a bridge.
And so many years will pass and go
In the light cast by those bridges behind.

Горят мосты...

Мозговой Алексей Борисович
Когда мосты все сожжены
А берегов крутые склоны,
Потоком вод разделены.
И слышно только ветра стоны... 

Пытаемся мы брод найти,
В потоке времени ушедшем.
Но дважды в реку не войти...
Да и преград не стало меньше. 

В огне горят судьбы мосты,
Река в дыму словно в тумане.
Ошибок тянутся хвосты,
Рождённые во лжи, в обмане. 

Захочешь всё назад вернуть, 
По берегу пройдёшь в пустую.
Не сможешь даже заглянуть,
В судьбу теперь уже чужую. 

Река всё глубже, брода нет.
Лишь пепел пылью под ногами.
Пройдёт не мало долгих лет, 

Но всё горят, мосты за нами...

No comments:

Post a Comment