Upon mountain slopes, which the daredevils consider their Mecca, Where winds blow wild and jagged peaks puncture the sky, There once had resided a good-natured mountain echo - It used to respond to a cry, desperate human cry. When loneliness swells in your throat and cuts off your air, And your lips let out a sigh that nobody can hear - This quiet plea for help the kind echo would pick with care, Preserve, amplify and deliver it right to your peers. Were they beast or men - high on poison and drunken on ale? They didn’t want anyone hear them howl and brag, And so they conspired to cripple the mountain vale. They tied up the echo and they silenced it with a gag. It went on all night - the obscene bloody orgy of violence. They stomped on the echo and yet no one heard a sound. By morning a firing squad executed the echo in silence, And boulders, like tears, rolled down the face of the mountain.
© Julie Deshtor. Translation, 2013