Someone seeing a fruit that was young, too young, Shook the trunk till it fell to the ground, the ground; Here’s the song of the one with his song unsung And who never found out how he’d sound, how he’d sound. Maybe destiny’d left him upset, upset, And misfortune had thwarted him just too much, But the string that lay stretched on the fret, on the fret, Was invisibly worn where it touched. He started shyly singing "do", But stopped with half the scale to go... His chord stopped short with no eclat, eclat, And no one thought to listen twice... The dog was barking and the cat Was chasing mice... It makes you laugh until you cry! His jokes were dying on his lips; He never got to taste the wine And didn’t even take a sip. He had only just entered the ring, ring, Looking hesitant, feeling unsure, And his soul seeped from under his skin Just like droplets of sweat from the pores. And the fight hadn’t got off the ground, It had started just minutes before, And he’d barely had time to look round, And the ref hadn’t opened the score. He longed to know it all to Z, But stopped at ABC instead; He never guessed and never could Go far below what lay above; He found the one but never would Live out his love, live out his love. It makes you laugh until you cry! He ran but never reached his goal; And he could never quite decide The questions he couldn’t resolve. Not a word is a lie; this I know: He served truth and expressed all he felt. He wrote poems to her in the snow But regrettably snow always melts. But a snowfall then covered the ground Bringing freedom to write in the snow; Fluffy snowflakes and hail swirled around And he tasted the flakes on the go. He hurried trying to approach Her waiting in the silver coach; The runaway ran out of time And couldn’t leap to her or fly, And Taurus, since his birth his sign, Drank the cold Milky Way on high. It makes you laugh until you cry! He needed just a second more. The link was missing and the flight Was falling short, was falling short. It makes you laugh until you cry! That’s true for you and even me. The horse mid-leap, the bird mid-flight... By whose decree? By whose decree?
© Margaret & Stas Porokhnya. Translation, 2008