A Song To My Son In Remembrance

 

Do not call me, father

Do not seek me

Do not call me

Do not wish me back

We're on a route uncharted

Fire and blood erase our trail

On we fly on wings of thunder

Nevermore to sheath our swords

All of us in battle fallen

Not to be brought back by words

Will there be a rendezvous?

I know not

I only know we still must fight

We are but sand grains in the infinite

Nevermore to meet

Nevermore to see light

Farewell then, my son

Farewell then, my conscience

My youth and my solace

My one and my only

And let this farewell

Be the end of a story

Of solitude vast

And which none is more lonely

In which you remain barred

Forever and ever

From light and from air

With your death pangs untold

Untold and unsoothed

Not to be resurrected

Forever and ever, an eighteen year old

Farewell then

No trains ever come from those regions

Unscheduled or scheduled

No aeroplanes fly there

Farewell then, my son

For no miracles happens there

As in this world

Dreams do not come true

Farewell

I will dream of you still as a baby

Treading the earth with little strong toes

The earth where already so many lie buried

This song to my son then

Has come to its close

IN REMEMBRANCE OF THOSE WHO WAITED

“In February 1942 Pravda published a poem: ‘Wait for me’. Soldier’s cut it out of the paper, copied it out as they sat in the trenches, learned it by heart and sent it back in letters to wives and girlfriends; it was found in the breast pockets of the killed and wounded. In the history of Russian poetry it would be hard to find a poem which had such an impact on people as ‘Wait for me’.” 

Wait for me and I'll return

Only wait very hard

Wait when you are filled with sorrow as you watch the yellow rain

Wait when the winds sweep the snowdrifts

Wait in the sweltering heat

Wait when others have stopped waiting, forgetting their yesterdays

Wait even when from afar, no letters come to you

Wait even when others are tired of waiting

Wait even when my mother and my son think I am no more

And when friends sit round the fire

Drinking to my memory

Wait

Do not hurry to drink to my memory, too

Wait, for I'll return, defying every death

And let those who do not wait say that I was lucky

They will never understand that in the midst of death

You and your waiting saved me

Only you and I will know how I survived

It is because you waited

Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov