Letter to my Mother

Are you still alive my mother?
Alive am I, and greetings I send.
And may the tranquil light of evening
Upon your humble home descend.

They write me you are anxious, mother,
Consumed with longing for your absend son,
Are seen too often in your faded jacket
Waiting by the roadside when your work is done.

And when you sit alone in twilight,
A horrifying vision makes you start:
You see me brawling drunken in a tavern
And someone stick a knife into my heart.

Take comfort, mother: that is only
The foolish fancy of a troubled brain.
Not such a drunkard I, nor such a monster,
To die without embracing you again.

I love you tenderly as ever
My only hope, my only desire
Is to find at last a longed-for harbor
Besides your steady-burning fire.

I'll come when buds are bursting in the garden,
When in the orchard blossoms blow.
But mind you do not awaken me at dawning
As you were wont to wake me long ago.

Do not awaken what is meant to slumber,
Do not evoke the ghosts of blighted dreams.
Too early did I suffer bitter losses,
And learned the worth of human schemes.

And do not try again to make me pious:
What's gone is gone - forever out of sight.
You alone are all my strength and gladness,
You alone - ineffable my light.

So be not anxious any longer, mother,
Not warse your strength in longing for your son.
And go no longer in your faded jacket
Down to the roadside when your work is done.

Sergey Esenin