Now I seem to be a Jew.
Here I plod through ancient Egypt.
Here I perish crucified, on the cross,
and to this day I bear the scars of nails.
I seem to be Dreyfus.
The Philistine is both informer and judge.
I am behind bars. Beset on every side.
Hounded, spat on, slandered.
Squealing, dainty ladies in flounced Brussels lace
stick their parasols into ny face.
I seem to be then a young boy in Byelostock.
Blood runs, spilling over the floors.
The barroom rabble-rousers
give off a stench of vodka and onion.
A boot kicks me aside, helpless.
In vain I plead with these pogrom bullies.
While they jeer and shout,
..."Beat the Yids. Save Russia!"
some grain-marketeer beats up my mother.
O my Russian people!
I know you
are international to the core.
But those with unclean hands
have often made a jingle of your purest name.
I know the goodness of my land.
without a qualm they pompously called themselves
the Union of the Russian People!
I seem to be Anne Frank
transparent as a branch in April.
And I love.
And have no need of phrases.
My need is that we gaze into each other.
How little we can see or smell!
We are denied the leaves, we are denied the sky.
Yet we can do so much -
tenderly embrace each other in a darkened room.
They're comning here?
Be not afraid.
Those are the booming sounds of spring:
spring is coming here.
Come then to me.
Quick, give me your lips.
Are they smaching down the door?
No, it's the ice breaking...
The wild grasses rustle over Babii Yar,
The trees look ominous, like judges.
Here all things scream silently, and, baring my head,
slowly I feel myself turning gray.
And I myself am one massive, soundless scream
above the thousand thousand buried here.
I am every child here shot dead.
Nothing in me shall ever forget!
The "Internationale." let it thunder
when the last anti-Semite on earth
is buried forever.
In my blood there is no Jewish blood,
In their callous rage, all anti-Semites
must hate me now as a Jew.
For that reason
I am a true Russian!
.....by Yevgeny Yevtushenko