Бажанов, А. Стихи и поэмы о саамском крае = Verses & poems on the Saami land / Аскольд Бажанов ; English translation by Naomi Caffee ; with an essay by Johanna Domokos. - Berlin : Nordeuropa-Institut der Humboldt-Universitat, 2009.

81 The wellspring of life Having just finally grown up, and completely made peace with my grey hair, you understand, the best things are behind me! After my father was killed in battle, it became the highest honor for me to live, to study in native Leningrad, to be fascinated, to endlessly dream, and with the same intense infatuation, to fill my little notebooks with poems, as if I were happily running along some familiar little path! Ahead o f me, behind the sloping bald hill, the light-blue water waits for me. And I gallop along the treacherous swamp, not leaving any footprints! And there’s the little house, the hundred-year-old walls; the watchful windows gaze out at the sunrise. It’s childhood, everything here is unchanged, it’s life’s fresh wellspring! Here is the beginning o f my family tree, nice little hills in a woebegone row. My great-grandfather w ill surely see me, I come to him as a guest, after all! I stoop unceremoniously, bearing the heavy burden of life on my shoulders! I believe that my ancestors w ill approve o f me; they’ll say, »Our great-grandson does not live on in vain!« But how w ill I know this? I need a clear and lucid sign: let at least one o f my dogs bark in the pine forest! And, having successfully hunted the wood grouse, I build a campfire by the water. That means my day has begun with the sign, I continue to struggle with fate!