THE BOY WHO HURTS INSIDE

By Yasen Vedrin

(Gold Coins in the Oak Chest)

Will You give me back, Lord, all those years of a blue-eyed idyll?

So the aged in me can grow young like a boy at his start.

And when someone demands: "Did you drink from the river of sorrow?"

I would hide with no answer, with faith of a sparrow's heart

I am seeking my space — not the one that is endlessly high,

But the rope where my mother would hang all the laundry to dry.

And I wish for my dreams — not as juices that springtime receives,

But the ones where I scraped up my hands and my knees in the leaves...

I want mornings by river-pools, filled with acacia's sweet breath.

Or the evenings at cinema, watching the hum of machines.

Give me blue canvas shoes... Even grandpappy's wooden clogs, blest.

Give me back those same eyes lost in childhood, and all of its scenes.

Plow my memory deep, for they sank in the soil and the clay —

All those colorful years of a bright and a living world-fair.

Only faint, faded dreams sometimes warm me with sounds on the way,

To remind of the past which returns nevermore to the air.

And to say I'm alive — for what reason? To fill up their sheets?

Or perhaps I’m a sickness no doctor on earth can endure...

From the jail of the future, dear Lord, give me amnesty, please!

I just want my own freedom... The boy who is hurting, so pure.