Журавли [Zhuravli] [English translation]

Nahum Grebnev (Nahum Rambach)

[from Rasul Gamzatov]

The Cranes

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 still fly in the skies and gently cry.

Isn’t it why we often hear those sad chimes

And calmly freeze, while looking in the sky?

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 a mist of ashen

I’ll soar with cranes, and final rest 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…

Poetic translation into English by Leo Schwartzberg © 2018