Bulat Okudzhava
My city is asleep

My city is asleep now, but I don't care a bit.
I was its baby-sitter, I was its little kid.
Its soldier and its worker, too, I used to be.
It always had the feeling of striking love for me.

Its helping hand it stretched me in an estranging way
remembering my week-days, but not my holiday.
And if I am to perish, and if I cease to be,
as it wakes up next morning will it remember me?

Will it send charming women late in the afternoon
to pay me their tribute, cry over me and mourn?
And yet I love it fiercely, I love it more each day,
and out of my love I model gods some way.

I don't need anything now, and I have no regrets
for there's my guitar and a pack of cigarettes.

Translated by Alec Vagapov