apologies to the Russian of Osip Mandelstam

Celebrate, my brothers, freedom in twilight,

this grandiose twilight year.

Lower a crushing weight of wooden snares

Into the boiling waters of the night.

Arising into years of death, you are--

the sun, the judges, the people.

Celebrate then destiny's burden

which our leader of the common cowboys 

shoulders with tears, crying 

          or rather sniffling

 when need be

                    for the cameras

mostly grimacing

                       and half the people smile with him

Celebrate then destiny's burden

the weight of twilight that is power,

that oppressing load.

Whoever has courage left, must hear, time,

the ship as it sinks to the bottom.

The birds bound into crazed armies 

and now no light shines; 

the very heavens chatter, 

twitter and slide, and are alive with vermin

sliding as through fishing nets - 

                    in thick twilight -

where no sun light penetrates - the earth takes sail.

But let us try: one, super-human, awkward,

screeching turn of the ship's wheel.

The earth sails in darkness. 

                               Take heart,

like a plow divides the oceans,

we remember, though frozen in Lethean cold,

this secured earth cost us ten heavens.