- translated by Richard Coombes
- russian text: https://kopilkapoetry.org/?p=744
Live as if already dead, and watching
Film of someone else altogether.
Dance your pain like gods twerking and bopping,
And every day walk out of home forever.
Don’t grow attached to material things: fools gold –
A samurai’s attached to his katana.
To squeeze out life by the drop – leave that to the old.
Keep moving, not immobile in asana.
Take ten deep breaths before making up your mind.
Trust your holy tablets; go with speed.
The world is unreliable and not kind.
It’s just no other world has yet been made.
You’re samurai. Your way is your master. And gone
already is your life: accept your death.
Clench your fist. It is as hard as stone.
Dance your twerk. Herein the pull of fate.
Run like water; do not set like clay.
Float the corpses of your dragons down the river.
Don’t falter, as at woe, if steep the way.
Ahead are steeps and woes enough for ever.
Diana Balyko
Diana Balyko (b. 1979) is a poet, playwright, and political activist from Belarus. She published five poetry collections, and her plays were staged worldwide. In 2021, Diana’s family fled from their Minsk home to Kyiv to escape political persecution; the year after, war forced them to leave Kyiv. In 2022, Diana was an Artist at Risk resident in Prague.
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