Читать книгу Apples from Shinar - Hyam Plutzik - Страница 16

THE OLD WAR

No one cared for the iron sparrow

That fell from the sky that quiet day

With no bird’s voice, a mad beast’s bellow.

Sparrow, your wing was a broken scar

As you blundered into the mother-barley.

Sparrow, how many men did you bear?

“Ten good men, pilot and gunner—

Trapped in the whirlpool, held by no hands,

Twisting from truth with curse and prayer.

“Ten good men I bore in my belly—

Not as the mother-barley bears.

Ten good men I returned to her there.”

Thunder rolling over the barley!

Fire swarming high and higher!

Home again to the barley-mother—

Ten good sons, pilot and gunner,

Radioman and bombardier.