The Heirs of Stalin

Mute was the marble.
                     Mutely glimmered the glass.
Mute stood the sentries,
                         bronzed by the breeze.
Thin wisps of smoke curled over the coffin.
                     And breath seeped through the chinks
as they bore him out the mausoleum doors.
Slowly the coffin floated,
                           grazing the fized bayonets.
He also was mute--
                   he also!--
                              mute and dread.
Grimly clenching
                 his embalmed fists,
just pretending to be dead,
                            he watched from inside.
He wished to fix each pallbearer
                                 in his memory:
young recruits
               from Ryazan and Kursk,
so that later he might
                       collect enough strength for a sortie,
rise from the grave,
                     and reach these unreflecting youths.
He was scheming.
                 Had merely dozed off.
And I, appealing to our government,
                                    petition them
to double,
           and treble,
                       the sentries guarding this slab,
and stop Stalin from ever rising again
                                       and, with Stalin,
                                                         the past.
I refer not to the past,
                         so holy and glorious,
of Turksib,
            and Magnitka,
                          and the flag raised over Berlin.
By the past, in this case,
                           I mean the neglect
of the people’s good,
                      false charges,
                                     the jailing of innocent men.
We sowed our crops honestly.
Honestly we smelted metal,
and honestly we marched,
                         joining the ranks.
But he feared us.
                  Believing in the great goal,
he judged
          all means justified
                              to that great end.
He was far-sighted.
                    Adept in the art of political warfare,
he left many heirs
                   behind on this globe.
I fancy
        there’s a telephone in that coffin:
Stalin instructs
                 Enver Hoxha.
From that coffin where else does the cable go!
No, Stalin has not given up.
                             He thinks he can
                                              cheat death.
We carried
           him
               from the mausoleum.
But how remove Stalin’s heirs
                              from Stalin!
Some of his heirs tend roses in retirement,
thinking in secret
                   their enforced leisure will not last.
Others,
        from platforms, even heap abuse on Stalin
but,
     at night,
               yearn for the good old days.
No wonder Stalin’s heirs seem to suffer
these days from heart trouble.
                               They, the former henchmen,
hate this era
              of emptied prison camps
and auditoriums full of people listening
                                         to poets.
The Party
          discourages me
                         from being smug.
"Why care?"
            some say, but I can’t remain
                                         inactive.
While Stalin’s heirs walk this earth,
Stalin,
        I fancy, still lurks in the mausoleum.

Translated by George Reavey