The Golden Groove Has Finished Talking Poem by Emil Sharafutdinov

from Esenin

The golden grove has finished talking
In its birchen, joyful tongue
And cranes, sorrowfully flocking
Away, don't grieve for anyone.

For whom to grieve? Each man is just a pilgrim in this world -
Walks by, comes in and leaves again one day.
Only a hemp-field and the crescent moon over a pond
Dream of all those passed away.

I stand alone amid the naked field,
The cranes are carried by the wind into the distance,
With thoughts of my light-hearted youth I'm filled
But nothing in it makes me sorry for an instant.

I'm neither sorry for the years spent in vain,
Nor for the lilac blossom of my soul,
A fire of a rowan tree burns by a country lane
But it can warm no one at all.

The rowan clusters won't burn out,
The yellowness will not destroy the crop,
As a tree softly drops its leaves about,
So melancholic words I drop.

And if the wind of time, when I am gone,
Rakes them together in one needless ball…
Say it like this… that in a lovely tongue
The golden grove has said it all.

February 2023