The Alaskans sometimes wonder among themselves

Why their country attracts only sailors, adventurers,

Swindlers, frauds and inveterate thugs to its coast.

To understand that strange to say, one would have

To trace the continuity of those sailor traditions

Till nowadays and observe the similarities between

The early Russian sailors under the command

Of a Dutch named Vitus Bering and modern TNC,

Transnational Corporations, in their general outlook,

Their interests and the natural process of selection

And, if the worst comes to force of circumstances,

Which washed them ashore on this faraway corner

Of the North continent, and the motives that drove

And are still driving them to this preserved by gods

Perpetually frozen country—gold and adventure.

Gold and adventure that in the first instance drove

A Genoese by the name of Christopher Columbus,

The greatest explorer and sailor-adventurer of them all,

To seek a route to India and China called ‘el dorado.’

When one who begins to understand that continuity,

Begins to understand how that Columbus’s tradition

Has been so firmly and equitably carried on, and one

Begins to feel a sort of pity for India and China—

A pity that it is not our humanity but our thirst

For money and our capacities, as buying livestock,

That have attracted the Europeans of the so-called

'Age of the Enlightenment' to those Asian shores.

It is gold and success, also known by the name

Of “bitch-goddess,” which has bound the West

And the East together and thrown them into this

Infernal whirlpool of obscenity and greed for gain,

With not a single human, spiritual tie among them.

They don’t admit this now to themselves, the Asians

And the Europeans: the former ask the Europeans,

Without turning an eyelash, why they do not leave

The region if they hate it so, and the latter ask in retort

Why the Asians do not leave the foreign zones, and

Both of the sides do not know how to reply. As it is,

The West does not bother to make itself understood

To the East, and East bothers even less to make itself

Understood to the West. Meantime, the question is:

Does the planet Earth rotates on its axis because

Of the everlasting contradictions between the Eastern

And the Western Hemispheres? Or, maybe, there are

Some other solid grounds and sound reasons,

As distinct from the driving force of gold, adventure

And success for the existent unity of opposites

On this still blue planet called Earth? Meanwhile,

The question remains to be opened. But for how long

Can we keep up it permanently opened? Is it beyond

Our force to find the answer in the foreseeable future?