Журавли

Sometimes it seems to me each fallen soldier,
Who never returned from battlefields of gore,
Did not just simply perish in a combat;
They have turned into cranes as white as snow.

And ever since those days they have been flying,
And we can hear their moans and groans.
Isn't that why it's so often and so sadly
We fall dead silent watching them fly by?

A tired flock of cranes is flying high up,
It’s flying in the fog and in the dusk,
And in their formation there is a small gap,
This place (who knows?) might probably be mine.

The day will come, and with a flock of cranes,
I’ll also soar into the same gray haze,
And from the sky, I’ll be calling out bird-like
All those, who I’ll have left behind on the earth.

Sometimes it seems to me each fallen soldier,
Who never returned from battlefields of gore,
Did not just simply perish in a combat;
They have turned into cranes as white as snow…

1968