The days of my far-away childhood
When I wept over “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”
Have returned and swept me away.

Though I came to this World
As a fair-skinned one,
Always thought of the black ones
As brothers of mine.

When the merciless whip
Was tainting white cotton
With the red blood of blacks
My heart was weeping.

From the tears of mothers
Who’s children were sold on the block,
From the suff’ring of those
Who toiled in the fields dawn to dusk
A majestic tree has arisen.

Fertilized by the ashes of slaves,
Irrigated by blood of the blacks,
Stood the tree as if spiting the ones
Who its branches did cut.
And it sprouted the roots deeper still.

It was yearning for freedom and Sun
And, behold, many branches were lost
But it reached for the dream and success
And ensured its right to exist
As an equal among the peers.

So, that day, when the Dream of all blacks
On the wings of the Hope
Flew into the greats halls of the main
Edifice of the land,

Like in days of my past
Over pages of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”
I was weeping my heart out
Still feeling the pain of the past.

Liana Margiva

Translated from Russian by Anatol Kardiukov