Thirteen Stanzas On Quislings (Grigore Vieru) Poem by Paul Abucean

They are the ones who have
Hacked our language
And our doina and our map!
And are now busy hunting down
Our institutions!

They are the ones who have
Mangled our traditions!
And are now threatening
Our press!

The ones who have strangled
Handsome churches!
And crucified us
In '46!

The ones who herded us up
And pushed us toward Siberia
At gunpoint!
The ones who took our cow
First, then the whole herd!

They had us deported
For a handful of rubles!
They have been remodeling us
On various patterns!

The same who have let
Tobacco invade our hills
Like foes invading
With firing cannons!

The same who select
And mark down the place
Where smoking factories
Will be raping fertile land!

The ones poisoning our fields
And our watersprings.
The ones who do not hesitate
To point their guns at us
When we reclaim our alphabet!

They flatter the stranger
With grapes and with jokes!
They greet their own mother
With 'zdrasti'!

They say Stephen the Great
Is detrimental to urban harmony!
They lied to us at school
That before them we had had nothing!

They proclaimed, from the height
Of our hunched and maimed names
That a marvelous future
Was within reach!

They keep on running
Around our graves, with their medals
In their teeth and their benefits
And their cages
Like mutts holding on to their bones!

They, the makers of borders
Down the middle of brothers' tears!
They, never knowing shame!

Away with you, scoundrels!


(Translated by Paul Abucean)