Leaves are mourning golden color

Fall has painted their girlfriends,

They are mourning when it’s raining,

When the wind is thrashing branches,

Able not to find its peace.

Know leaves that on such dark day

Death may come like bolt of thunder,

Claiming its forsaken victims

That will fall like knights in battle

Ripped off branches by the wind,

And destroyed without mercy

In some crazy, wild vendetta.

Sun will shine, as always, brightly,

Rain will fall to feed the grasses,

And amongst the early blossoms

Birds will chant the hymns to Spring

That will fill with great contentment

Lonely hearts that ache for passion.

Everything will be like always,

But today the leaves will wither

No miracle will save them.

Sun won’t shine for them tomorrow,

Bare trees will soon forget them,

They will turn to worthless garbage,

Useless litter on the ground.

But the leaves don’t want to wither,

Know leaves that Winter’s snows

Won’t arrive soon,

And it’s not their time to die.

True, the Sun will shine tomorrow

And the Spring will bring new sprouts,

But the Sun can’t love the newbies

Like it loved the old cohort.

But the wind keeps thrashing branches

That are shedding yellow soldiers

Battle-weary in the struggle

For their miserable lives.

Wind is soulless, it can’t fathom

What it means to leave existence.

Knows wind that death may happen

Any hour, any minute,

Pretty daydreams interrupting,

It will end the joy of life.

Time will come and their children

Will be basking in the Spring Sun,

Just as if their rotting parents

Never rustled on the branches,

And the Sun didn’t warm their skin.

But on this gray Autumn morning

Leaves fall down from the branches

Making space for new arrivals

That will come to be next Spring.

They are tumbling, spinning slowly

T’wards the ground where death is waiting

Under same sky where for some time

They were rustling blissfully.

Morrow’ll bring abundant sunshine,

But the leaves won’t feel its warmness:

They’ll be raked and neatly packaged

For the fire to devour them.

Rain keeps weeping for the victims

That this world abandoned early,

Leaves are sobbing, falling slowly

In the puddles of bitter tears…

This will happen on the morrow,

When the rain its thirst will quench,

Not today, when leaves are destined

Their early grave to meet.

By  Liana Margiva

Translated from Russian by Anatol Kardiukov