Aron Kopstein

1

The shadow of a bomb carrier falls to the black land like a cross.

The horsemen are galloping. Dust is hanging in the air.

2

Right near the Black Sea the city of Kherson grows.

Street Nasypnaya. My childhood passed there. 

What did I remember? A water of the Dnieper that was gray,

Thunder of bombes, laments of a crazy old crone.

Blood on the sand shore, hoarse cries “hurray”,

My mother's warm hands, the basement, the dampish limestone.

Clouds are gathering over the gloomy Kherson.

Clouds that seem to me made of steel after the years.

This is how the memory of my childhood begins:

The soldiers trample heavily. The children run in the rear.

This is how the memory of my childhood begins.

Stupid my heart pangs with a sharp premonition of grief.

A pointed helmet, over the shoulder a bayonet,

A flask that is filled with our bitter Dnieper water.

Wounded scarlet sunrise is unwilling to look at the slaughter!

The bayonet pierced the stars, there is soot in the sky.

Guards on the Rhine, why do you stand on the Dnieper?

Guards on the Rhine... Clouds. The wind. And the clatter.

3

And then the Red Army soldiers came to the river city.

Torn boots, dusty coats, big working hands.

It seemed to us, even the Sun would listen,

if you tell it to laugh - and a smile would shine on the sands.

The Red Army soldiers left. My brother went with them.

The pals saw him off, my mother wished him good health.

He did not come back, Red Army soldier Kopshtein.

(I then enlisted myself and there the reason it was).

Yakov, my brother, you are buried not far from Warsaw,

In Polish Land, in an unmourned mass grave.

Yakov, my brother, your quiet name still rings in my thoughts,

Our feet on the march repeat it again and again.

Not in a coffin you lied, just bare ground it was,

Here you lied on your back and it seemed you looked at the sky.

Now I am a grown-up man, and my childhood is lost.

But I cannot forget you, and my sadness is high...

I swear allegiance to you, oh, a killed brother of mine,

With all my poems and my heart, my engine and my gun, 

That a German soldier will never pass here again,

Over our river, across our hot sunny plain.

I swear allegiance to you, oh, a killed brother of mine,

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I dreamed of my childhood - my home sad,

A thorny bush, a pond lying dead.

For long I dreamed of my homeland

And water tasted bitter at the end.

Yes, I remember. Trench fever marched along:

"Cheer up in your misfortune" soldiers sang

And also marched down hot and thirsty. 

And miles marched by.

Submissive. Heavy. Dusty.

Yes, I recall this street

And army forces

That led along the tired, faded horses.

I dreamed of the morning frost in January,

And of midnight, stuffy like an infirmary.

I also dreamed of yellow paper sheets.

And dreamed of you. Oh, yes, I had, I had.

The candles smoked all night, and all the night

How longed I to help you all I might!

But you were sleeping, clutching your pillow,

Black typhus burned you like a flame - the willow

How should I forget this delirium and fever,

And voices of German officers quite near?

This very evening when my mother died?

Why should I remember my being a child?

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It seemed to me that I found myself

In the land where there are no dreams

Where it was crushed under heavy tyres,

Where it was bled white in the thick smoke,

Where it was drunk in the woodlouse-filled cellars -

My little and frail youth.

I was a youngster in that country. My

Eyes were sunken.

My rough hair jutted upwards.

My sharp cheekbones

seemed to tear the skin.

I wandered

Along the streets which were lit up like a sunrise.

My hungry eyes fell upon shop windows. There

Sausages cried out to me

Longing to be eaten.

A ham was trying

To crawl to my hands,

But the crystal window curtain

Prevented this.

A thin blue volume

Slept in my pocket.

The poet wrote about the joys of love,

That he had a small beautiful table in his heart,

Around it on exquisite stools

Young ladies were playing cards of silk,

And Klara’s gaining everything he had.

I was holding timidly this thin booklet,

which escaped only by a miracle

The flames of the bonfire. In that country

They burned books, destroyed paintings -

In the delusional picture of my dream...

I walked along the streets. Gentlemen passed by

All about my age. The colour

Of their uniforms was brown like October mud

When you are climbing out a black basement

And looking at the remnants of puddles

Under the setting sun, under the dead sun.

I sold to the brown gentlemen

Small packages for their enjoyment. They

Threw a pfennig contemptuously snorting,

And went away, clicking their heels.

And secretly, yes, with half an eye, so that no one

Would see, would watch

I opened this thin booklet of Heine

And read about the stuffy world, about love.

I also longed for the Spring of love.

I also wanted for the cunning Clara

To beat me. But no one

There was, oh, no one. And nothing.

I walked home. All the day at home

The light was on.

Twenty steps I had

To go down through the cave corridor,

And then into my room.

It was Spring.

No, that is a lie.

That was not Spring.

Because there are always clouds underground.

Because there is no time underground,

Nothing happens there, only darkness.

A thin slice of pale bread,

Smeared with grey margarine,

And a mug of yellow rusty water —

Here it is all my wealth. And Heine's small volume.

As I climbed up, clouds

Surrounded me. Shining shops

Crossed my path.  And a bonfire

Burned on the street. A sleek student shouted:

"For the glory of the nation." And everyone was silent.

In that country they dreamed in chains,

In concentration camps, in cells. A former

Trucker, a leader, Comrade Thalmann,

Rocked back and forth

In the darkness of his cell —

and dreamed.

But not only that.

They weaved a shroud, threading into it

Their curse. And dreamed. And materialized

Their dreams. But I didn’t know where

To go. And I went to the riverbank.

Here on the bridge

Couples were walking, music was playing,

The women laughed; fog floated by.

A red-haired freckled policeman

drove me away.  And I went under the bridge

Where children and old people rested,

Anxiously sobbing in their sleep,

And holding their Pfennigs to their hearts.

I fell into the water. Then I swam.

I saw bloated corpses floating by

And I dropped under the water either. On the bridge

Couples were walking, music cried above.

And then I woke up. In my quarter.

In the country which is mine. Light-eyed.

Longboats sailed in the deep blue water

And the moon faintly faded at daylight.

A shepherd pastured his flock on a waterside.

Women walked. Guards changed. All was right.

And I exclaimed:

- I will avenge you all,

My comrades,

With whom I saw my grief

At least in the Spring!

The march of History hums.

The Communist Party is alive.

The time will come.

And I said: "Thank you! I am alive!

I go out onto gorgeous grass in morning light"

Comrades of mine, I will avenge your doom.

The Communist Party is alive. The time will come.

‍

Near the ocean I welcome my downs

Soon it will be time to say “so long!”

Near the Khanka lake on the lawn

I can hear a Ukrainian song.

I was listening to a song for the whole day

Sticking the word to the word

And I repeated again and again

All the fragments of the songs I have heard.

And among the hills of the seashore

Suddenly the thought has come

That I already have my Motherland

And for me it is the only one.

It is the land where I was brought up

On the hills of the Dnipro the Great

Where I learned my native tongue

Which I will never forget.

Here I grew inquisitive and vivid

And in my childhood far away

Grass that sprouted on  Volohinska Street

Lavishly covered my way.

Here I fished at summer sunrises

In backwaters of the river Koshovaya

And the flowering of the spring steppe

I have loved for the rest of my life.

.

Maybe I will never come home

Maybe I will encounter my end,

Dropping my weather-beaten helmet

On this foreign, this rusty sand.

Or maybe I’ll fall into Manchuria kaoliang

Crushing it with this heavy body of mine,

“I was not a stranger in the world!” -

I’ll recall for one last time.

No, I don't want a different fame

If only I am remembered by

Grass on Volohynska Street,

Liman and its hills high above.

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“My father lies in the alley of roses” (A. Blok)

My Father died in January. Humpbacked morticians came

at night and sat until the morning,

lit only by the moon’s uneven flame,

So shy and gash and odd in their mourning.

A crooked window opening emitted light

Unstable and false. My father lay. His hair

Was grey and yellowish and ruffled. And the night

Ran as horses run in their despair -

All black and foamy and cloudy. And later

With burned mouth I was swallowing water.

… And threw him into a pit. Five sculls, ten arms,

Eight feet.  A cripple was buried

Together with them. Silence swarmed about us

so wide and tense, so white and so lurid.

Ten arms lie in the cemetery grave…

Take mine that are so long and strong. But beware!

For you can take my every breath away,

And yet, and yet I will be still alive!

My Father died in January. His earthy bosom

I wouldn’t be able to find but I will come again,

Maybe in April, gasping blooming bloody blossom

Of apple orchard in the down-pouring rain.

For I won’t die, oh, let you take my strength

Oh, let you blind my eyes and stop my heart,

And let the calm morticians not intend

To wait for me till down on the cart.

For even a dead man will feel - there is an end.

For many years is my father dead.

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