Jacek Kaczmarski - Stalker

Who among us did not sail on the sinking wreck,
Who among us can deny they are flawed?
Who was not deluded by a blind bird?
Who was not led into the wilderness by a stray dog?

Ans still fenced off Zone draws us,
And fenced off not without reason - we want to believe;
It's not us in the Zone - It is the Zone that we've been denied,
Our unsure but own steps will measure it
Until bitterness defeats hope.

So, through barbed wire, towers and guardposts
We want to go where we've been denied;
Become masters of useless, silly secrets
To burn with longing's fever one last time
Before some gust blows away our wavering heads.

The route circuitous may be - and false,
Perhaps we're led by a greedy charlatan,
But it's better that death on calcifying ramparts
On the the invisible frontiers and approaches,
Where soldier yawns, so much like a prisoner.

It's a road through valleys flooded ages ago;
In shallow waters time's secret messages - blurred:
A trail of icons, manuscripts and rifles,
Over which oars blade carves Apocalypse's ripple;
Not for us the mourning cry, and not our fathers but for our sons.

So the truth we're to find - is it an empty room
Where disconnected phones suddenly ring?
Heart's lifeblood seeping through dead brook,
Powerless wrath at Heaven's silence
And magic words to ward off the curse?

So the truth we're to find - is it a stone table,
From which worship's object fell - touched by no hand?
In prisoner's train rumble - Beethoven's Aria?
Bottomless depths - and above bottomless depths
Our own face reflected in the void?

Who among the ones drowning - fate did not send a raft?
Among the crippled - did not return their health?
When the blinded bird found it's way
And stray dog sat on the threshold of a home?