My Comrades

[mehinda.livejournal.com]

My Comrades

They were burnt in tanks, my comrades,
burnt to embers, cinders, reduced to ash.
Grass grew out of them, of course,
grass that spreads over half the world.
My comrades
               were blown up
on mines,
            pitched high in the air,
and many stars, remote and peaceful,
were kindled
            from them,
                      from my friends.
There's talk of them on holidays,
they're shown on films,
and those who were my schoolmates and fellow students
have long since become lines in poems.

~Boris Slutsky, tranlated by George Reavey