OLGA BERGGOLTZ: Promise

Promise

1952
My foes will be not by my perish consoled –
They won’t have a reason to pour the false tears.
The hook, I’m to hang on, still isn’t in a board,
It’s not even forged, its ore lies in the earth.
I’ll stand up above my life’s bottomless crater,
Above all its fears and iron-made pines…
I know and remember so much… I’m a fighter. 
I’m too of some kind of the horrible price...


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, March, 2002