Speaking In Tongues
Scribbling In Voices


Robert Rozhdestvensky

MONUMENT TO SOLDIER ALYOSHA IN PLOVDIV


Translated by Alec Vagapov



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The view from here is as wide as the ocean,
The horizon is almost dissolved in haze.
Like a guardian angel
Soldier Alyosha
Over Plovdiv-city
Is raised.
Alyosha, the sculptor has made a mistake.
Your looks must have cramped his style
His knowlege of you must have been quite vague
Or, perhaps, it was absolute null.
You look like a boulder, sleepy and gray,
A sort of a dumb rock.
You're sullen in the stone
While you used to be merry
And were always
Willing to talk...
The haze will fall on the motionless forest
Making it tenderly blue...
Alyosha, now I am almost
Ten years older than you...
I just grew up after the war
But I am courageous enough.
I have seen a lot,
You have seen much more,
You have known the loss of life...
It's no good to disturb the dead.
I'd better give up. Quit. Lay off...
Instead of asking: Alyosha, how's death?
I ask: Alyosha, how is life?
My question may sound strange, pure fluff,
I just have to clear up this thing:
Do I, in fact, live the kind of life
For which you once ceased living?
Believe me,
it's my constant exam!
I'm taking it all the time.
I look at my own self, with bias
Through your merciless eyes.
And I cannot hide myself from these eyes,
They don't set my mind at rest...
I have to account for two lives!
I've got two hearts in my chest!
No danger will make me fearful or anxious
For a soldier looks into my mind.
Alyosha,
I'm leaving for Russia.
What shall I tell your mama?