Дети алеппо

ДЕТИ АЛЕППО
Чард де Найорд, р. 1952
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3f5tUWsIfU

Дети задавали
тысячи вопросов:
почему же небо сине, зелена трава?
Но внезапно замолчали,
так ответа не узнав.
И звенит молчание в Алеппо так,
что слышат камни здесь у нас,
в штате Арканзас.
Почему же те пилоты в поднебесье
слышат только рёв моторов,
крыльев свист, что разрывают облака?
Кто поверит: высота и скорость
их возносят в небеса?
Нет, непрезойдёнными
пилотами им никогда не стать,
если в никуда и незачем
летать.

January 25, 2017
Черновой перевод: 27 января 2017 года
Chard deNiord was born on December 17, 1952, in New Haven, Connecticut, and raised in Lynchburg, Virginia, where he attended Lynchburg College. The son of a doctor, deNiord anticipated going into the medical profession as well until his college professors introduced him to religious studies, which he chose as his major. DeNiord graduated from Lynchburg College in 1975 and went on to earn his MDiv from Yale Divinity School in 1978. Before pursuing ordination, deNiord got a job working as an inpatient psychiatric aide at the Connecticut Mental Health Center.

CHILDREN OF ALEPPO
Chard deNiord, b. 1952

The children were asking
a thousand questions about why
the sky was blue and grass was green
when suddenly their tongues
were stilled by an answer they
never saw. Now silence rings
in their place so loud a stone
can hear it in Arkansas.
So why not the men inside
the sky who only hear the roar
beneath their wings that rip
the clouds? Who believe the distance
is theirs for the way it turns
the heavens into a high of feeling
nothing at all? In which
they have everywhere to turn
as excellent pilots—really
superb—with nowhere to go.