What is your sad song about,

A singer from the distant land?

Why do you weep for me, a stranger,

You’ve never met?

The meaning of the words escape me,

Your language I don’t understand.

And yet, my heart is well aware -

About me your sad song weeps,

About love I so much desired

The one I waited for in vain.

My heart believed in love’s arrival,

It just a matter was of time,

For how could it not come

Knowing how much I craved it?

The flowers bloomed,

Then lost their petals,

The leaves commenced their final fall,

Yet love was nowhere near,

It wasn’t in a rush at all.

Preoccupied with other lovers,

It rushed to warm their lucky hearts.

Then misery my heart discovered

And settled there forever

To make the heart forget about

Love, happiness and blissful smile.

Now you, my darling foreign singer,

The nightingale from distant land,

Lament the hearts where bitter sadness

Replaced the extasy of love.

And now, behold, my heart is weeping

Awakened by the voice of singer,

Oblivious to the foreign lyrics.

A singer from the distant land

Woke up my heart and let it know:

Love does exist on Earth somewhere.

Love warms the hearts of some, the lucky ones,

Yet, ceding others to chagrin’s embrace

So they could weep and yearn for it

And cherish the dream that never came through.

The yellow leaves are falling ever faster,

They take along the years of our lives.

The chorus of the hearts of love depraved,

By sorrow worshiped, cheated by the love

In cynic with Ahmet weeps, conceded by the song.

By Liana Margiva

Translated from Russian by Anatol Kardiukov