A Wandering Estonian

Translation by Samuel Grolmes and Yumiko Tsumura

A Wandering Estonian

yesterday    I met    a wandering Estonian
he is not a Flying Dutchman
in your letter    Yan!    I understand your grandfather's days
unfurled the sails in a spacious garden    and I hear angels were singing the song
     of the honeybees
I know nothing of    the old days of your grandfather's
grandfather's    grandfather    the boy who lost his father    when he was a child
before he could remember    soon    will become
a wandering Estonian
no matter how hard he searched    and searched
there are only a hundred secrets    a thousand bits of evidence    about his father
who had disappeared    been wiped out
"I    saw    your father    in the camp
when I worked with him    that man orthis man    father A    father B    father C
father D    the stories of those who happened to see your father
are all scattered tales"    so I think
now    if my father were to return to this world
I would never    live in a land like this again
I would    leave    here    be gone to a different continent
but    Yan!    a wandering modern Dutchman
an Estonian Dutchman
who is that professor    teaching
Polish on a ship in heaven with sails spread?    he has
wings on his back    but    there is a trace of frozen blood
on his chapped hands    and on his chest    don't cry
trees in what was your grandfather's garden!
birds that were singing there    insects    an infant boy!
you can hear the song, can't you    we    are the Flying Dutchmen
while we are alive    and when we are dead    Yan!    in your letter
your trees tremble
I can hear a poem    in Polish by the man who was your father
don't unfurl the sails    now is the time    that ship is
passing the garden     of your grandfather's days
when angels were singing the song of the honeybees