None to Break the Birch Tree (tribute to A. Bashlachev)

Put away the brass pipes, string the steel strings tight. Or else you'll end up breaking your teeth. And into our dreary latitudes The sparks of the most sincere songs will fly like ashes onto mold. You're always caught between a spoon and a lie, and we're forever caught between a wolf and a louse. Time on a parallel plane tears through the cracks with drafts, Icy black holes, the windows of a parallel world. We played our cards terribly wrong, and were baptized behind bars. You were forging horseshoes for us — but we paid a heavy price. You shaved the shavings from the tree, only to take root anew. You tossed away a copper half-kopeck, right past our crown of thorns. Our troubles never even haunted your dreams. Our thoughts never even gave you a hiccup. You surely choked on it, while we — what, just licked our lips? Only sorrow and yearning as clouds over my gray-haired land. Cities bloom with bruises, and villages break out in a plague-like rash. Bad roads and trenches all around, we are hurrying to the river, brothers. A hundred-pound stone around the neck — it's too early to go swimming, boys. The ice-cold water is fine, but a deep whirlpool lurks within. We can neither drink our fill, nor wash our faces, nor untangle the mats on our eyelashes. Here's your path back, go wind your way to your native dugout. Whether it's a christening or a wake in there — it's all the same, just another drunken brawl. If some outsider happens to wander by, they'll marvel at our wretched creatures, At our rare strength of heart, and our folly, as if it were sacred. We'll roll out a barrel of cabbage, bake a bride without dough. On the outside, it's still empty, but on the inside, it's as cramped as ever. The new mash is a sweet little berry, a wicked poison. Here's your Prague, pal, and here's your Warsaw, buddy. Well, let's have a laugh, my simple wife. And what we're laughing at doesn't really matter, If in the mornings it's very dull, and in the evenings it's very scary. The whole world huddles together on a single stool, the whole world crowds onto the plank beds. Sleep, my child, hush-a-bye... There is no one left to break the birch tree. There is no one left to break the birch tree.