* * *
A cast*
of your last words,
Soldier,
mixed with blood
and mud
sticking to the soles
of your boots,
which have seen
this carnage.
And next to it is
a new artifact:
this is a cast* of silence
mixed with
explosions of shells,
and the echo
of the most select obscenity.
A little further away is a third cast* –
of your open eyes,
in which, mixed with
the blue sky,
the moment froze forever
as evidence,
proof
that a new day has already come,
cheerful,
without war, and without you.
* Figuratively, the cast that the poet has in mind is a death mask. (Tr.)