A. Kafanov

Be slow, day! Don’t pass by so fast…
Don’t make a war ‘gainst castles of a cloud,
They were, by silence of the sky, built out,
And height was, by the blue of heaven, glassed.

And I, a serf, still didn’t pay my rent,
I’ll be again bent to the earth by troubles,
And it still didn’t pass through my silent mouth –
The prophet’s word which world waits to be said.


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, June, 2001