Classic Poem

In a broad and many-peopled land
I was all the more alone.
When I returned home, spent, my family of three
looked up at me. But
clinging to the bitter cold wall, I'm lost in reverie.

Because of the war, my fortune and best friends have disappeared.
The works of the human intellect reduced to a heap of ash,
the glory of the past, too, has taken flight.
My best friends, we were so close, have scattered,
sometimes there isn't even an echo when we call our names.
The buzzing of planes fills my ears again today,
and sleep won't come.

When I read poetry on a sleepless night,
her soft perfect face wells up as if a dream
above the blank white page.
My best friends scattered, the next meeting unplanned,
kidnapped by communists.
She will have escaped the world of affliction
with the speed that only a corpse has.

The righteous war awakens me.
At the other side of oblivion I drank for a long time.
It's been a festival of misery
since so many days have been mine.
But when we fathom the fight fought in the name of endless freedom,
the fight that broke out in our own front yard,
I announce that my departure has been delayed.

My fortune . . . . . . the shattering of this.
My life . . . . . . the shattering of this too.
Oh, isn't it a great thing when one's life goes to shit?
My mind is different than it was. Still
I'm a real coward when it comes to my beholden family.
Why do I hide my face from them? Why do I make a fuss?
I am staring my last days in the face.
On top of that, I am crying alone.

In this broad and many-peopled land
I alone am tardy.
I may not know when I'll die but
I have an illimitable attachment to life.