Nikolay Mayorov

We are not blessed to rot under gravestones  –
To lie all stretched, –  having half-opened graves,
We hear guns’ roar from the battle’s place
The regimental trumpet’s coarse wails
From the highroads that were our own. 
We know all field manuals by heart.
What’s death to us? We’re higher than death here.
In our graves we’re in arrays, advanced,
Wait for a sign to go in a fight 
And let all know that the dead do hear
The offspring’s talk of them and their past.  


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, September, 2002