а чего, пусть и здесь тоже будет
By request, I translated into English. Original text by Serhiy Zhadan.
Original in Ukraininan and translation into Russian.
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-- Where do you come from, black birds, human chain against our shore?
-- We are residents of a city that does not exist, chaplain, sir.
So we came here, docile and tired. Can you please tell
Your men to stop shooting? All others have left as well.
Our city was built of stones, and bound with steel
We filled our travelling bags as well as could fill
And now they are full of ash, so it seems.
Smell of smoke and fires follows in our dreams.
Our women were carefree, that is, not likely to speak or fight
Their fingers pulled back the edge of abyss at night.
Our springs ran deep, our trees rose up to the sun.
Our churches were roomy. Until we burnt the last one.
How to best explain us? Read it on our grave,
Chaplain, can we just talk before the returning wave?
Show us love, or show how to squeeze us in iron vice.
You can receive confessions, and that will have to suffice.
Tell us why they burned it, and who decided they can
Or say it was a mistake, denounced by all honest men.
That guilty ones will be punished, with none escaping the noose
Say anything else besides what we hear on the news.
-- Very well, let me tell you what happens when all is lost.
It is known, in the end the guilty pay heavy cost.
In the end, by the way, the innocent pay it too.
Everyone who saw anything. Then everyone who knew.
Why is it now your turn to fall under metal flood?
Should have paid attention when reading the books of god.
Should have stayed away from hellholes that smoke and bleed.
The worst thing for laymen is to witness embodied creed.
Did you hear what prophets said about bearing pain?
When birds fall like rocks and litter the poisoned plains,
That is when real loss begins. By the end it's getting much worse.
Must I talk about it now? Everyone understands a curse.
How are we different, you and I? Like vowels and silent vowels.
Everyone's ready to face death when it is not ours.
Everyone's due for payment, if not tonight, then next day.
I say this, too, to my people, when I have little to say.
And because I cannot redeem in the eyes of god,
I will not decide how you live now, or where you go.
I can only speak of the everyday moral war,
If you only knew how out of luck we are.