VAPTSAROV, Nikola


Farewell

To my wife

Sometime I’ll come into your dreams

Like an unexpected, unwanted guest.

Don’t leave me outside on the street –

Don’t bolt the doors against me.

I’ll enter on tip-toe. I’ll approach so gently

I’ll narrow my eyes to see you in the dark

And when gorged with gazing at you –

I’ll kiss you and then be gone.

Spring

Oh my spring, spring dressed in white

Still unlived, uncelebrated,

Only dreamt in murky visions,

Passing low over the poplars,

Never landing in your flight.

Oh my spring, spring dressed in white

I know you come with rain and whirlwind

Spouting fire with insurrection

To restore a thousand hopes

And wash out the bloody wounds.

How the birds will sing in cornfields,

They’ll swim in the open full of joy,

The people gladly set to work

And like brothers love each other.

Oh my spring, spring dressed in white,

Let me see you in first flight

My life’s been given in dead arcades

Let me only see your sun,

Then – die upon your barricades.

Last verse

The fight is hard and pitiless

The fight is epic, as they say.

I fell. Another takes my place –

Why single out a name?

After the firing squad – the worms.

Thus does the simple logic go.

But in the storm we’ll be with you,

My people, for we loved you so.

2 p.m. – 23.vii.1942