In the dead of the night
The mother sheds her tears
Over a yellowed page of old newspaper
Featuring the picture of her son
Jumping to his doom
From the blazing tower.

Come again, my son, I will be waiting,
The mother utters and finally goes to bed.
Mommy, dear, don’t cry, I couldn’t perish
Without thinking of you,
The mother hears as she drifts to sleep.

My beloved son, let me know more.
Stumbling upon torn, charred bodies,
I wondered to the light and plunged,
Hoping something may stop the fall
And save my life for you, my dear mother.

On that distant, dreadful September day
I waited in the yard for you just like before
When you were late from school.
And then the paper came and there you were
You leaped from wicked flames
To lethal Death’s embrace.

Forgive me, son, for failing to be there,
For trying not to wrestle you from Death!
Don’t cry, dear mommy, didn’t I hear you say
That men were mortal, all of men!

I may have said it, right,
But I could not portend
The fate of my beloved, little boy!
The little boy who had become a man.
On that day, mother, they sentenced me to Death,
Those monsters who were killing us
In  name of  their  god!

My son, the God is one.
It was the people into monsters turned.
In Black September people shed their good
And Evil reigned, It creeped into our quiet home
And took my son, and buried me alive.

Don’t cry, my dear mother lest your heart
Be pierced by another pain.
Dear son, my heart turned into stone that day,
Devoured by dark and bottomless abyss.

Pain dwells there all the time, there’s no cure.
But, mother, I remember, every Spring
Your heart would blossom like an early flower
And fill with fragrance of the nature’s youth!

My darling, the wind is howling
The Requiem for you who has been lost for good.
The mother says and grabs her heart
And cries from early morning to the night
Until the moment comes and in her dream
Her son is back alive.


              By LIANA MARGIVA

  
  Translated from Russian by ANATOL KARDIUKOV