The big, black heavy pistol

with stubborn trigger and impressive barrel

This beauty, called nagan

it's in my hands - to joy there is no end

not every kid of seven

is so lucky

but it was said: “let the boy play

while we are sorting out this vinaigrette”

This type of guest has never come before

their belts are strapped so tight, their figures chiseled

They are unhurried and assured

“your place – it’s just like a museum

Let’s take a look at the photographs

Say, do you believe in saving all your letters?”

Until we part I’m blissfully entranced

While grownups play their games,

Mesmerized by the gun until the end

And grateful for the visitors who came

I’ll only give it back when they are done

And all of time is at my will for now

My father sees the guests off

I give the pistol back 

The owner puts the ammunition back into the cylinder

and tells me: “thanks brother, you are swell

your daddy here will walk us out

I’m sorry there's no room for you in our carriage

Goodbye my boy and be on guard, 

Especially since war is all around us”

I do remember those two horses

The wagons leather top pulled up

my father's eyes downcast

that’s how they went - the search and the arrest 

while I was full of absentminded play

My mother soon without a job or means

And hunger in the soulless city

And our parting for destinations yet unseen

The logging camps to be exact

Street wizened quickly are the sons of convicts

And every sap must soon become hard boiled

and me, the mamas boy of days before

Knew that I was son to the Enemy of the People

This title I wore for years to come

from the guarded year of 1941 

Until the rehabilitation of us all

The dead and live among this Country of the Workers

Which signified a happy end 

And that there was no one to blame

The ones who sat and those who sat them down

The voiceless ones and the informers

And that those wild years dissolved without a trace