A Poem for Monday

...The wild grass rustles over Babii Yar.
The trees look ominous like judges.
Here all things scream in silence,
and, baring my head,
Slowly I feel myself turning gray.

And I myself-
one massive, soundless scream
above the thousand thousand buried here-
I am each old man
here shot down.
I am every child
here shot down.
Nothing within me
will ever forget.

Let the "Internationale"
thunder
when the last anti-Semite on earth
is buried forever.

In my blood there is no Jewish blood.
In their callous rage all anti-Semites
must hate me now
as if I were a Jew.
And for that reason
I am a true Russian!

-Yevgeny Yevtushenko,
translated from Russian by George Reavey