BALLAD OF THE UNKNOWN FALLEN
(Translated from Alexander Dolsky's 1978 poem)
They found my body Thursday in a minefield,
My glassy eyes reflecting sky and snow,
And everything that I'd been taught in grade school
Into a crater next to me did flow.
My friends and comrades, by platoon and company,
Had just retreated, leaving me behind.
And then the burial team that passed this way on Wednesday
Forgot to load me, but I didn't mind.
And so I lay, no longer fearing bullets,
Who'd been so scared to death throughout the war,
When there approached to me some German soldier,
Who quietly my body knelt down o'er.
And straight away the Hitler Youth was startled
To recognize his own, young face in mine.
Surprised, he wept aloud from fearful terror
At my sad fate--or his foreboding sign.
Not having yet the faintest clue on living,
As terrified of death as an old man,
He muttered something--praying, maybe cursing...
But his strange tongue I did not understand.
And wanting to avoid my dull expression,
This enemy from not too long ago,
He buried me in soil not ours, thus hoping
To buy himself a pass from dying so.
But one day later, when our boys pushed forward,
His corpse lay in a ditch like mine before.
My friend said, "Man, that guy looks just like Sasha!
How sad that we can't find him any more."
And so I've lain here decades now already,
Accustomed finally to this foreign land,
And up above me I hear children playing,
But their strange tongue I do not understand.