The Kite, By Aleksandr Blok

Above the field drowses the kite

in ring turned through unbroken ring,

eyeing the grass. It’s desolate.

A cottage where a mother’s loss

frets at her son. Here, feed and suck,

grow to your suffering: the cross.

Age changes time, war tears the form

that nurses it: the village burns.

Earth of my earth itself returns

an ancient beauty that tears stain.

For how long must the mother fret

and the kite’s circling time remain?

Translated from the Russian by David McDuff and Jon Silkin; from “The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry,” edited by Jon Silkin (Penguin: 316 pp., $12.95 paper)