Sometimes I think that those soldiers,
Who from fields of blood never returned,
Did not fall in the earth of our homeland,
But turned instead into white cranes.
From those distant times even till now
They fly, and we hear their voices.
Isn't that why, so often and so sadly,
We fall silent as we gaze at the skies?
The tired flock of cranes flies and flies across the sky,
Flies in the mist at day's end.
And in their ranks a small gap I espy -
Perhaps it's a place for me.
The day will come when in a flock of cranes
I'll float away in the same blue-grey haze.
And I'll call out, like a bird, from high in the sky.
To all of you whom I left on the earth.
Sometimes I think that those soldiers,
Who from fields of blood never returned,
Did not fall in the earth of our homeland,
But turned instead into white cranes.