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Fate

 Fate is above me. Why should I browse? 
 Sleeping in dosses, an outcast, I rove. 
 Grief is a cellar, 
 that opens in every old house. 
 A ditch is below me and fate is above. 

 What did I want? Well, a life of contentment. 
 What did I get? Just a coffin and wreath... 
 Under the cradle a grave has been latent. 
 Fate is above me, a ditch is beneath. 

 Up in the sky my soul, like a hound, 
 howls, despaired, 
 the trigger to pull it was keen. 
 Fate has come over my family background, 
 and on the earth where fate is my kin. 

 What have I done, apart from the simple 
 poems I've written in passing to date? 
 I've been a lightening conductor for people. 
 Now I have broken my back. Such is fate.

© Copyright Alec Vagapov's translation






Book: Reflection on the Important Things