Son

My son – as if not my own -
Rejects all that I cherish,
Espouses what I loathe
And laughs when I’m in anguish.

And, despairingly, I am trying
To guard from him my world,
Grown for the sake of the coming
And vulnerable to the core.

He falls with me into Lethe –
He’s my proud orphan,
Raised with a pregnant spirit
And in a fit of cognition born.

And he, raised within my belly
With my own flesh and blood,
In forty three years
Will marvel at his own son:

“My son – as if he’s not my own -
Rejects all that I cherish,
Through what circular road
Was he born in his grandmother’s image?”

By Lubov Sokolovsky
Translated from Russian by Ilya Shambat
http://www.geocities.ws/ilya_shambat2005