Baba Onysia once had three sons —
all three of her offspring were lost.
And on every one strand of her crystalline hair
there crackles the winter’s frost.
I’ve seen strife and ifs made me shudder,
but greater strife no one’s known
than the pain of an aging mother
who must face her old age alone.
She suffered through crying and knowing
the pain and the horror of
just watching her grandchildren growing
without their fathers’ love.
For all astronautical missions,
for the fact that we’re well and we’re here,
I’d erect a bust of Onysia
in some place in a Moscow square.
Just to tell the future’s precursors
when into the joy of their age they should delve,
all their strife on her pain-ridden shoulders
was laid on by Onysia herself.
She would stand there, in honor surpassing,
she would stand there, remembered, erect,
so that all may respect her in passing
and remove all their hats in respect.
Перекладач: Andriy M. Freishyn-Chirovsky
Оригінал: Баба Онися
Мова: english
