Why is everything wrong? - Everything just is like always:
The same sky, once again it’s blue,
The same forest, the same air, and the very same water,
Only he didn’t return from the battle.

Now I can’t understand, which one of us was right
In those sleepless, restless arguments of ours.
I’m only now getting enough rest,
Since he didn’t return from the battle.

He shut up at the wrong times and often sang the wrong lines,
He was always talking about something different,
He didn’t let me sleep, he got up with the dawn,
But yesterday he didn’t return from the battle.

What’s so empty now - I’m not talking about that,
All at once I noticed that we were a pair!
For me it was if the wind blew out the fire,
When he didn’t return from the battle.

Now spring has run off, as if from captivity
By mistake I yelled at him:
Friend, put out the cigarette! - But in answer - silence
Yesterday he didn’t return from the battle.

Our dead don’t leave us when we are in trouble,
Our fallen are like sentries.
The sky is reflected in the forest, as if in water,
And the trees now stand in blue.

There was plenty of room in the foxhole,
Time there slowly passed for both of us.
Everything now is just for one man... Though it seems to me,
That it was I who didn’t return from the battle.