Vera Inber
It will come to pass

Inevitably, years will pass by, filing —
A long, long row.
Into one orchard city, asphalt beehive,
All cities will grow.

Beautiful roses planted on glass roof-tops
Will flourish, too.
But we — alas! — will neither see nor hear it;
Not I, nor you.

Despite all this, it’s easy to imagine
This city and
Its greenery, framed in sunlight’s brilliance,
In all men’s land. —

There’ll be a statue centered in a certain
Square’s octagon,
Constructed so the sunset’s gold spills, streaming
Onto the jacket’s bronze.

All kinds of little children go there, happy,
Mindless of care.
Glowing, they send their smiles in the rich sunset
To him who towers there.

A mother lifts her baby to the stone steps
And watching sunbeams piled
Above them utters softly, ‘This is Lenin,
My child.’

Translated by Vladimir Markov and Merrill Sparks