Apparently the more stressed-out I am, the more work I have to do, the more I completely, unstoppably want to create or translate poetry. I wonder if a similar process goes on with Ms_danson putting art on her journal if she's busy. Vysotsky's 'Song of the Earth' came onto my playlist, and my brain insisted that this one is turning into English, and right now.

Who had said, "It's all burnt far and wide
From this Earth seedlings never will sprout"?
Who dared say that the Earth has now died?
No, She's quiet and waiting it out.

Motherhood can't be taken from her,
For the sea can't be drained with a leaf...
Who believed that the Earth is all burned?
No, she's black from her sorrow and grief.

They have cut trenches into her flesh
And the bombs have blown wounds on her plain.
And the nerves of the Earth, raw and fresh,
Cannot speak of unearthly deep pain.

She'll endure, she will bear all things ---
List her not with the cripples unhealed.
Who dared say that the Earth never sings, 
That her lips now forever are sealed?

No! She stifles her moans and she calls
Ringing high from each wound and each hole,
For the Earth is our soul, after all,
And jackboots cannot trample a soul.

Who believed that they burned down the Earth?
No, she's quiet and waiting it out...

 1969

YouTube clip with somebody else's translation.