Bulat Okudjava

They killed my father. He was killed
with no good reason – just in vain.
That was a little drop of lead,
but how’s deep the wound and pain.

He had no time to give a cry,
just cracked a shot in air, mute.
Its echo, long ago, had died,
but it’s in me – this burning wound.

I carry it through every day  
like a baton in the relay race.
I think, I’ll pass, with it, away
as with the arms at readiness.

And he, who made this deathly shot,
who’s ready else to kill the next, 
strait from his cellar’s bloody vault,
came at his home for a rest.

He came at home, yes, he came
t’ enjoy his vodka, children, wife … --
my countrymen without blame,
my brother by the social life.

And thus a lot of years along,
dejecting pain of former wrong,
we call us ‘brothers’ in a face
and live in brotherly embrace.


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, May, 2001