Radiation sickness

Radiation sickness!

                    Humanity

puts it bluntly:

          learn to endure.

The treatment

Takes an eternity,

and there’s little chance

of a cure.

Judgement’s passed.

No hope,

not a glimmer.

Is it fair—

          come, speak up and say—

that the heirs

of the Hiroshimas

for their fathers

                    are made to pay?...

Drops of dew

have a poisonous glitter,

and the air

pretends to be clean.

The complaints

          of the guiltless

                    are bitter,

malformed infants

moan and scream.

Mauled by time,

          our ancient planet

is a gaping wound.

 You are

omnipresent,

          and many-handed,

radialion sickness;

                    your scars

never heal.

Look!

    The calendar, grinning croukedly,

sheds its sheets....

          The deadly blast

fades away with the years,

                    but, wickedly,

time itself

you seek

to outlast.

In our blood-stream you rove,

                    sowing panic,

to our marrow

          you eat

                    your way,

like the germ

of an epidemic,

like the curse

of a blighted day.

You attack us in secret.

                    Your villainy,

like your sores,

is not pretty to see,

radiation sickness

          of calumny

swagger,

cowardice, spiteful glee!

It’s a fact,

          not a fruit of fantasy,

I am not

          sending words

                    down the drain.

Look how beardless

          these days

                    is hypocrisy:

it’s a sign

you’ve cropped up again!

 

Radiation sickness—

 how lavishly

You bestow your bounty.

                    Alas!

Exhortations won’t help

                    to banish you

from the planet’s

tormented face.

There’s no drug

in the medical cabinet,

there’s no doctor

          to spell your doom.

Time will kill you

                    in time.

That’s definite.

It’s a pity

it won’t be soon.

Translated by Irina Zheleznova

ROBERT ROZHDESTVENSKY