Checkmate! -3 Father s farewell

Поэтический перевод произведения «Шах и Мат! - 3. Прощание отца!»,
автор исходника на русском языке – [Сергей Плотников]

It happened that Checkmate became a father,
Midst burning, blowups and disturbing days.
His breed by Lada came this life to bother –
Five pocket-size and flammeous sunrays.
Five warmish tiny knots unkept and lonely,
Five souls, he from fatality safeguards,
But in the war the law is such and only,
The childhood here is carried off by shards.

Once volunteers managed to crawl deeper,
They said, “The kids will go someplace to peep,
No refuge here, but alleys of the Reaper,
It’s not a place for kids to fall asleep.”
And Checkmate’s got it. Heart’s in tatters here,
But he’s a father, weak he never was.
He is to conquer very primal fear,
And give them strength from very native paws.

Farewell, my children, my short paradise,
The uppermost in life my testing ground.
And fly, my cry, the farthest brim somewise:
“Battalions of sky will keep you sound!”
Mischievous fate, I pray to you, take care,
Of progeny of mine, my live footmark.
I kept you safe below this sky, I swear,
To help you find a peaceful home to bark.

The first of mine has father’s steel effect,
“A warrior, but you will know no war.
Be learning, son, to love and to protect,
But not through gruesome quiet anymore.”
The second one smelled sun, the Lada’s dream,
“You give out warmth in palms of hot day’s glee,
The third one is so snoopy and gold’s gleam,
“Let him be healthy, similar to me.”

The fourth one smells of storm, brave like no other,
“To you, my kid, the fearlessness bestow”,
The fifth one’s open-hearted like its mother,
“The faithful one; the fate of yours you’ll know.”
He mentioned all and sundry, like a wolf,
And having licked his salty tear away,
He was a chief, defender, soldier, god,
And he became a shadow with no sway.

Lo, Lada’s being taken. Parting glances
Have pierced him as a foeman’s fragment strengthy.
She’s being taken far from their romances,
The path of parting’s troublesome and lengthy.
She’s whining and is breaking from the wheeler,
And he is standing whole in stony slackness.
The heart of man’s unable ever feel her,
All’s in the dark and covered by the blackness.

Sat by the shelter with his snout skyward,
And for the first time howled in face of day.
He gave it all – his fiction and his byword,
And learned the latest password to obey.
The code to wade the grief where dawn is lacking,
Where stew is absent, but the grief is smelled,
Instead of love there’s echo’s only barking…
And howl. So hum. So shrilling. And undwelled.