Exactly a year ago I
stood
on this very spot of sacred
Earth,
on a wooden embankment by a
quiet harbour
of a Lake Michigan port.*
The landscape around me
is the same as before:
fishing-boats sail by
or sit silently at their docks...
while ducks float noiselessly
along,
or sleep, standing, their head
tucked underneath their wings,
while the sun calmly rises
over the vast expanse of the
'Great' lake
in these early morning hours
of an American autumn.
Only behind this peaceful picture,
behind the scene in front of
me,
not everything, this time, is
going along
the same smooth channels as
before.
This time
the rhythm of life is noticeably
disturbed...
and its rhyme (at least, temporarily)
lost.
Only three short weeks ago
the free world stopped breathing
freely...
its collective heart, for a
moment, came to a stop,
and its sense of overall well-being
took a sharp turn --
possibly for ever.
O horror!
But what can one say
about such an odious crime,
completed in the name of religion
but completely counter
to the essence of any 'eternal
truth' in the universe,
just as darkness runs counter
to light,
or non-being to being!
A year ago
the western world was asleep
in the "cradle of innocence",
fully persuaded of the inviolability
of its own military security,
but not fully aware, in its
inner consciousness,
of the sufferings of countless
strangers
on the other side of the globe,
not fully attending to their
cries of despair...
offering aid, to be sure, occasionally,
to them,
but sometimes to their oppressors
as well...
boldly boasting of its own material
riches,
but paying little attention
to the spiritual needs of mankind,
thereby provoking feelings of
revulsion, even hatred,
directed not so much at its
individual inhabitants
as at their apparent arrogance
and inattentiveness
(as viewed from the east)
toward the plight of others.
A year ago (quite possibly)
the seeds of hate,
feeding on the perceptions
of an ignorance and self-satisfaction
harmful to their world,
were already engendering schemes
of malevolence,
squeezing out reason and common
sense,
paying no heed to the moderating
influence
of the overwhelming majority
of their colleagues of faith,
blindly attempting to eradicate
with physical force
misunderstanding, mistaken reasoning
and a misguided attitude to
the haters' brethren.
Action and reaction,
action and reaction,
each time increasing in intensity,
each time manifesting itself
in more and more unacceptable forms,
each time feeding with new fodder
the lowest human tendencies
toward fear, anger, envy and
hatred,
each time turning ordinary people
--
the oppressors, as well as the
oppressed --
into unwitting victims of the
serpent-lie
of man's unlikeness to the Creator
of all.
But what can be done?
How can one stop this 'devil's
wheel'**
of senseless, arbitrary violence,
of killing and the self-killing
of the killers?
The answer is clear:
counter evil not with its likeness
but with its complete opposite
(just as Christ commanded us
and Tolstoy reminded us) --
not with evil but with good,
not with heretical violence
but with the heritage of common sense,
not with ignorant condescension
but with divine comprehension,
not with "revenge at any price"
but with the priceless reflection
of love,
not with bombs and not with
blood
but with good housing and food.
How I hope, that another year
later,
if I should stand on this same
spot of Earth,
I shall be able to know
that the quiet harbour before
me
reflects not just a world that
should be
but a world that then really
will be --
a world renewed,
a world sensitive to the despair
of any of its peoples,
a world ready to act according
to the principles and precepts
of pure, universal Love!
Then and only then
can we really bring back what
is lost,
restore our life's natural rhythm
of a grand world symphony of
peace,
and then the rhyme divine to
find
in the harmony of all mankind.
America, Lake Michigan
30 September 2001
Translated from the Russian by John Woodsworth
16 October 2001
*See poem 'In harbour' of 2 October 2000, by
the same author.
**"devil's wheel" -- what the Russians call
a ferris wheel.
