Bulat Okudzhava
The Times

Now, again as before,
mothers seem to be fond of their kids, love them dearly.
In the past they did loved them, really,
but often reproached them for sponging,
and spanked them severely.

Now they keep everything,
just in case, for some future occasion:
alarm, faith, love and tears...
Is it an instinct
or weakness, faint heart,
or is it a historic experience?

Is it something developing all by itself
that, invisible, hangs in the air,
that has given them fussy and fidgety love
and filled their life with great care?

Or, unwilling to wait, they now leave to themselves
the right for the last word, or rather
they are anxious to praise, exalt and forgive
and make wonders instead of some other?

Whatever it is,
however you look,
and no matter what lesson life gives us,
the price of caress and love in this world
again has gone up for some reasons.

When their sons, their scrawny adorable kids,
lie, tease cats, flood the markets,
in laziness wallow,
it’s Abel and Icarus, not Cain and Daedelus,
whom, mothers believe, they will follow.

And they picture themselves,
through the caprice and wrath,
through the chaos of fuss
of their daughters' whimsy:
now Penelope's grief,
now the arms of Jeanne d'Arc,
now the visage of grand Mona Lisa.

I can see their eyes full of tears,
and their beautiful eyebrows, raised when they’re bothered,
and I cannot imagine
anything else
but for this love of mothers!

Translated by Alec Vagapov