Earth in the viewport that I see…
Like a son missing his mother,
Like a son missing his mother,
We miss our Earth – we have but one…
But the stars nevertheless,
But the stars nevertheless,
Draw closer, though they’re still as cold as ever…
And like at the hour of eclipse,
And like at the hour of eclipse,
We wait for light and see our earthly dreams…
And we dream not of thunder at the cosmodrome,
Not of the ice-cold blue of the sky –
But we dream of grass – the grass beside our house
Green, green grass…
And we fly our orbits,
Unbeaten paths –
Lifetimes like meteors in the vastness…
Courage and risk were justified,
For the music of space
Floats into our matter-of-fact talk…
In some opaque haze
Earth in the viewport –
An early evening-time twilight…
But the son misses his mother
But the son misses his mother –
The mother waits for her son, as the earth awaits her children…
And we dream not of thunder at the Cosmodrome,
Not of the ice-cold blue of the sky –
But we dream of grass – the grass beside our house
Green, green grass…
Zemlyane (‘Earthlings’)
‘The Grass Beside Our House’ (1979)