Moments

[Ilya Shambat]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvUV9W4Jpkg

Don't view the seconds as something beneath
The time will come and you yourself will know this:
Like bullets by the temple they all whizz -
The moments, the moments, the moments.

Each moment has its reason and its aim,
Its own ringing bells and its reality,
The moments give to some people their shame,
To some - inglory, to some - immortality

From tiny moments woven is the rain
From sky the common water keeps on pouring
And half your life you stay here and you wait
When it will come into the world, your moment

Like gulp of water, huge, it will arrive -
The gulp of water in the summer scorching sun
And we remember dues we have in life
From moments - the initial to the final one -

Into the years the moments are compressed
The moments are compressed into the centuries
And sometimes I still fail to understand
Which moment is the first, which is the end of them -

Don't view the seconds as something beneath
The time will come and you yourself will know this:
Like bullets by the temple they all whizz -
The moments, the moments, the moments.

By Joseph Kobzon
Translated from Russian by Ilya Shambat