“Song Under the Bullet” by Arseny Tarkovsky (1960)
We are so bound up in discord
The centuries cannot disentangle us—
I’m a warlock, you’re a wolf. We’re close
In the continuous dictionary of earth.
Shoulder to shoulder, like the blind,
And led along by destiny,
In the undying dictionary of this country
We’re both condemned to die.
When we sing this Russian song
We trade our kindred blood in drops
And I become your night prey.
This is why we exist, wolf and warlock.
The snow smells sweet as a slaughterhouse
And not a single star shines above the steppe.
Old one, there’s still time to get your face
Broken in two by a lead-tipped whip.
(Translated from the Russian by Philip Metres and Dimitri Psurtsev)
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