The snow of war that flies askew
ignoring all the rules,
it fiercely pierces us through and through
but partly stays the course.
Snow rested the seventh useless wing
on earth’s frozen spine,
the other luckier six it brought
underground to his son.
There, underground, the rink of ice
glitters and melts with the laughs
of kids killed casually by war:
let’s mold them a dad of snow.
But death is eerily cunning,
it swaps the crown for a pail –
amidst the hasty castling –
a carrot for the cross and nails.
I also am a snowman’s son,
despoiled of hearing and sight,
the Holy Ghost’s transmitter
through poems, through ages’ might.
And as I wander among folk
not tired, distraught, amazed,
I’m sure I know who killed the kids
to the last letter of their names.
And snow ascends like ashes,
above the voiceless ruins,
above my dreadful sureness,
above our victorious colors.
The Original
Военный снег, летящий врозь,
не признающий старых правил,
он нас с тобой прошил насквозь
и только часть себя оставил.
Седьмое, лишнее крыло –
снег возложил земле на спину,
а шесть, которым повезло,
с собою взял, под землю, к сыну.
А под землёй блестит в огне –
каток и плавится от смеха
детей, убитых на войне:
пора – лепить отца из снега.
Но смерть устроена хитро
и предлагает рокировку:
венец меняет на ведро,
а крест и гвозди на морковку.
Я тоже сын снеговика
и проводник святого духа –
через стихи, через века,
лишённый зрения и слуха.
И я хожу среди людей,
не уставая, удивлённо,
и знаю, кто убил детей –
побуквенно и поимённо.
И снег возносится, как дым,
над пепелищем безответным,
над страшным знанием моим,
над нашим знаменем победным.
Alexandr Kabanov (born 1968) is a Ukrainian poet who writes in Russian. He lives and works in Kyiv. He is the author of fourteen books of poems and numerous publications in magazines and newspapers. Two books of his poems in English translation are available on Amazon: https://eastwestliteraryforum.com/books/the-age-of-vengeance and https://eastwestliteraryforum.com/books/elements-for-god/
Marina Eskin was born in Leningrad (St. Petersburg). She is a physicist by training. Marina is the author of four books of poetry in Russian, her texts and translations appear in various print and online publications. She is a member of the editorial board of “Interpoesia” journal.
Launched in 2012, “Four Centuries” is an international electronic magazine of Russian poetry in translation.
Ilya Ehrenburg (1891–1967) was one of the most prolific Russian writers of the twentieth century. Babi Yar and Other Poems, translated by Anna Krushelnitskaya, is a representative selection of Ehrenburg’s poetry, available in English for the first time.
Young readers will love this delightful work of children’s verse by poet William Conelly, accompanied by Nadia Kossman’s imaginative, evocative illustrations.
A book of poems by Maria Galina, put together and completed exactly one day before the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This is Galina’s seventh book of poems. With translations by Anna Halberstadt and Ainsley Morse.
The first bilingual (Russian-English) collection of poems by Aleksandr Kabanov, one of Ukraine’s major poets, “Elements for God” includes poems that predicted – and now chronicle – Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
A book of poems by Yulia Fridman.
“I have been reading Yulia Fridman’s poems for a long time and have admired them for a long time.” (Vladimir Bogomyakov, poet)