“A Russian guy lies on Afghan soil...”

Russian guy lies on Afghan soil.

A Muslim ant crawls up the cheekbone.

It's very difficult to crawl... The dead is too unshaven

and the ant says softly to him:

“You don’t know exactly where Ran died.

You know only one thing - somewhere near Iran.

Why did you come with weapons to us,

here for the first time heard the word "Islam"?

What do you give to our homeland -

beggar, barefoot,

if in your own

queue for sausage?

Are there few of you who have been killed,

to add to twenty million again?

Muslim ant crawls on the cheekbone,

and about how to raise, resurrect,

He wants to ask Orthodox ants

but in the northern homeland of orphans and widows

There aren't many of these ants left.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko, 1983

First publication - 1989