by Tom Kuhn
See the lovely billowing of the grain!
Sower, already
What you’ll achieve tomorrow call it your own!
31
Winter turned to spring. The men and tractors
Left for the new contest. That year
One grain produced seven hundred and the harvest weighed
Eighty-seven double-centner each hectare.
32
Tschaganak Bersijew came to Moscow to be given
The Order of Lenin by the Soviet powers. There he
The former nomad, sat before Michurin’s disciples
In the Academy of Science, smiling amiably.
33
They asked him many things. He answered
Stroking his beard the while, “I invite you
To visit us in our aul and ask the neighbours:
Several who learned from me do better than I do now.”
34
Himself thereupon he asked his first question:
What the maximum yield of any field might be?
They answered him that in the distant future
Two hundred double-centner very likely.
Dreams! Oh the golden “if only”!
See the lovely billowing of the grain!
Sower, already
What you’ll achieve tomorrow call it your own!
35
“If before and after sowing I use the roller
Will I not lose the moisture that we need?”
“Not where the winds are fierce! Your second rolling
Will bring the moisture nearer to the seed.”
Dreams! Oh the golden “if only”!
See the lovely billowing of the grain!
Sower, already
What you’ll achieve tomorrow call it your own!
36
“Your agronomist advises dung for fertilizer
But we think that’s not clean.” —“You were nomads, that’s the reason.
The land you sowed had never been cultivated
How could you store sheep dung, always moving on?”
37
Spring came again. The men and tractors
Marshalled with new techniques for another year.
The tide of grain rose higher and when they weighed it:
One hundred and fifty-five double-centner per hectare.
In the summer of 1941 the armies of Hitler’s Germany invaded the peace-loving Soviet Union. Millet became the staple diet of the soldiers of the Red Army.
38
And the army of fools and slaughterers
Havocked before Leningrad but through the snowy fir trees ran
Night after night the goods-trains full of millet
The gift of Kazakhstan.
39
Their delegates stood astonished in the forest
They had never seen before and Tschaganak Bersijew spoke
In the village clubs at nights to the Red Army soldiers
And doing so, his voice—he could not help it—broke.
40
“Fight on the frozen ground with easy minds
We shall look after you: the plough will aid the sword.
In the fields by now our womenfolk are stronger
And in us, the old men, strength has reappeared.”
41
He promised in the name of the kolkhozes
Millet for the army. And millet was sown in all of Kazakhstan.
And many sowed with grain from Bersijew
And techniques of his were deployed by everyone.
42
But the old man was planning a great example.
All winter long his group selected grains until the weight
Of a thousand, elsewhere only
Five grams, in their seed-stock was eight.
“Where’s the millet broth?” ask the soldiers.
“Here comes millet,” say the kolkhozes,
“Good quality, good quantity. So now
Let every soldier fight for two.”
43
In spring they sought out ancient pasture
Ploughed it two handbreadths deep with care
Laid a network of small dams and channels
So that water flowed round every millet square.
“Where’s the millet broth?” ask the soldiers.
“Here comes millet,” say the kolkhozes
“Good quality, good quantity. So now
Let every soldier fight for two.”
44
Old Bersijew saw to the watering. He watered
In the cool of evening or morning so there should be
No gulping in the heat. For gently
We drink in the cool and that is good, said he.
“Where’s the millet broth?” ask the soldiers.
“Here comes millet,” say the kolkhozes
“Good quality, good quantity. So now
Let every soldier fight for two.”
45
Twice they fertilized the field with sheep dung
A thing the kolkhozes had not done before.
Tschaganak did it himself and did it grumbling
“For the Academy,” he said, “and in their honour.”
“Where’s the millet broth?” ask the soldiers.
“Here comes millet,” say the kolkhozes
“Good quality, good quantity. So now
Let every soldier fight for two.”
46
Regiments now vie with kolkhozes
In the contest for the motherland
And kolkhozes with kolkhozes
And regiments with regiments contend.
47
Come summer when, too old to walk, Bersijew
Rode through the millet fields he seemed to swim
For his pony, small as they are on the steppes
Disappeared in the sea of them.
48
Together man and grain fought against Hitler.
Across the steppes, where little had grown before
Now with the liberating armies millet
Loyally brought up the rear.
49
So they will drive the war-wolf from their fields
Which they’ll extend in beauty to the far horizon!
And earth will deliver grain
And the world will have peace and will be glad again.
Root out the fascists!
Cleanse the land!
50
And in 43 on the Kursk salient
The Nazi army were beaten beyond repair
And in Kurman they brought in the wagons
And the yield was two hundred and one double-centner per hectare.
“The steppes by the Uil are old
The times are new.
Yesterday’s fire
Needs new wood now.”
51
Let us so with ever new inventions
Change earth’s shape and capacities
Cheerfully measuring thousand-year-old wisdom
Against the new wisdom, today’s.
Dreams! Oh the golden “if only”!
See the lovely billowing of the grain!
Sower, already
What you’ll achieve tomorrow call it your own!
52
Tschaganak Bersijew, the nomad
Lies buried where he first dug a field
And every year a sea of millet swirls around his gravestone.
He bequeathed his stock of seed. Increase his yield!
War is made by humankind
The lightning strikes and the rain pours down
And the clouds were brought by the wind
But it isn’t the wind brings war to the world
War is made by humankind.
The earth breathes deep in the rush of spring
And the skies grow high and still
But peace doesn’t come like leaves to the tree
It blossoms when humans will.
And they are few who own the steel
And they’ve got no use for the plough
And the few begin to feel that the earth’s too small
And they can’t get enough anyhow.
They count the people and they count the cash
And it all adds up to war
There’s far too many of these few in the world
We don’t want their dance of death anymore.
Mother, it’s your child that’s at stake
Fight back, say this cannot be allowed!
Whether we millions are mightier than
War is for you to decide.
And that’s the big choice for all of us
And if we all say: no!
War will be where we’ve come from
And peace where we choose to go.
When I left you, afterwards . . .
When I left you, afterwards
On that great today
I saw nothing, when I began
To see, but gaiety.
Since that evening, that hour
You know the one I mean
Livelier is my stride and more
Beautiful this mouth of mine.
Greener are, now that I feel,
Meadow, bush and tree,
The water is more lovely-cool
That I pour over me.
My love gave me a little branch . . .
My love gave me a little branch
With yellow leaves on.
The year goes to its end
Love has just begun.
Seven roses the rose bush has . . .
Seven roses the rose bush has
Six belong to the wind
But one remains so that I’ll have
One rose to find.
Seven times I’ll call your name
Six times stay away
But promise me the seventh time
You’ll come right away.
When it is fun with you . . .
When it is fun with you
Sometimes I think then
If I could die now
I’d have been happy
Right to the end.
When you are old then
And you think of me
I’ll look like now
And you’ll love a woman
Who is still young.
Masters of their craft buy cheaply
The stage sets and the costumes of the great Cas Neher
Are made of cheap materials:
Out of wood, burlap and paint
He makes the Basque fishermen’s huts
And the Rome of the Caesars.
In the same way my girlfriend fashions from a smile
She gets for nothing on the fish market
And casts off like fish-scales
If she will, a sensational event
Fit to corrupt Lao-tze.
I wait, brother . . .
I wait, brother.
The food in front of me does not appeal.
The carving I was working on won’t come out right.
I wait in the early dawn
To whom should I show the apple trees?
Also waiting, I hear: the men on the cranes
At the lathes, at the furnaces
They work, and they wait.
Dances
When Julia led Romeo astray
She rather needed for the moon to shine
And nightingales to sing, but I’ve heard say:
No boogie-woogie, and it still worked fine!
Girl, just stop complaining and come here!
The room’s too full to dance so yards apart.
Don’t be a prude and, as I say, come near
Klara, stir your stumps and play your part.
Encounter with the poet Auden
Out to lunch, just as befits
In a pub (not shot to bits)
He sat there like a cloud of smoke
Above the well-beered common folk
And bestowed a reference
On our naked existence
On the theory anyways
As it’s found in France these days.
On seriousness in art
The seriousness of the man who fashions silver jewellery
Is a welcome thing to the art of the theatre and welcome too
The seriousness of people who, behind bolted doors
Discuss the wording of the handbill, but the seriousness of the doctor
Bending over his sick patient is no longer proportionate
To the art of the theatre, and quite inadmissible
The seriousness of the priest, regardless whether mild or manic.
Essay no. 1 on The Mother
When this play, more than twenty years ago
Was performed to the American workers
“They sat there, delighted, on the benches
Eagerly trying to work out from what they saw
How they should comport themselves in the face of
The dangers of everyday events.”
But in their beginnings there was still a strangeness
In relation to the new playing
With which they were shown how to exercise thought
As an immense weapon in the class struggle.
And many hesitated to bestow praise
On something so new in their theatre.
They
“For whom earning a few cents
Was a daily adventure”.
You however, you who today
Watch the struggle of this mother
Standing in her tomorrow which is your today
You have fearlessly with every day
Begun the new
Performed the deeds
Alike unto those in courage and strength
Of which in the age
Of disbelief in the power of the worker
Only the legends of heroes tell.
For when, after the nights of fire
The din of the machines fell silent
You set them once more in motion, yet after a different manner
From in years gone by:
Not as their slaves, but as their masters.
And workers, who unnumbered days
In monotonous unchanging rhythm
Had only watched the weave or wound the armature
Began themselves to direct
The heavy business of the factories
Made strong by the strength of their class
Steeled in the days of Vlassova
Before and after
Using her experiences
From those without property they became themselves the proprietors.
You now, you who apply the principle that our play portrays
Namely: that the new contents require
New forms
You will not hesitate to salute on stage
What every day in your mines, your construction sites and on your factory floors
You yourselves prove.
Report from Herrnburg
GERMANS ARRESTED BY GERMANS. WHY?
THEY WERE PASSING FROM GERMANY TO GERMANY.
In May 1950 10,000 young Germans, returning from the Whitsun meeting in Berlin, were halted by Bonn’s police. For two days they were prevented from going home.
The Encounter at Herrnburg
The month of May was ending
And as the last night fell
Outside the town of Herrnburg
German youth stood still.
They were coming from the Peace Congress
In their capital city Berlin
Ten thousand and they wanted
To go their ways home again.
At Herrnburg there’s a barrier
The Bonn state starts there
Bloodhounds patrol and snuffle
Round pitfalls and barbed wire.
The Bonn state’s policemen
Stopped the children one by one
They wished to inspect them
For any infection.
And what the children were c
arrying
Was peace—a malady
So catching it might have infected
If let, all Germany.
The Bonn state’s policemen
Stood there side by side
Till suddenly the German children
Began to laugh out loud.
And all at once then around them
The trees and the dogs laughed too.
The trees, the dogs and the children
Laughed together, fortissimo.
The moon came out from the clouds then
Saw a laughing multitude
And seeing the policemen, she likewise
Laughed till she cried.
The moon watched over Hamburg
And over Leipzig too
And the flags were as blue as that German
May night was blue.
The Bonn police demanded the names of all those returning home. The young people steadfastly refused to have their names taken.
The young people refuse to give their names to the Bonn police
The fields and the streets know us all by name.
Please be so good as to let us go home.
I know him and her.
Write them down, officer.
And father and mother, we’re known to them
And also the Land and the town we come from.
I know who’s from where.
Write them down, officer.
We don’t want to be on the Chancellor’s new lists.