Philanthropy and poetry - The year of birth

Marching along ancient streets, ancient squares - city roots, names reminiscent of old crafts, dried
rivers, and jails - in closed ranks, nailed together like logs in the roof of a dugout, and all reeling in
one vast embrace, -
could I remember that morning? Yet memory so firmly caught hold of those grey faces, so long has
the imprint retained! - now at the break of dawn silently past me they float, hoping to see something
clearly - if right at the end;
hoping to see just for once - in the silk, crape and moire, in dusty muslin and gauze primly shrouding
all lamps - hoping to see all at once slogans, banners and wars, giants of industry, trenches and night
schools and dams...
Countless brass bands along with the mighty stream flowed, trumpets were silent, the breath of the
brass bands was hoarse, mounted police swayed in saddles, along with the crowd, each reining in
tight a nervous and near-prancing horse.
No time for horses, for water or oats or hay, no thought of moving the crowd to the right or the left;
like a breakwater, that street corner, and the roadway wobbled and swayed like the logs of a
timbering raft...
I was a child on that morning, and my tiny heart was barely beating below Shukhov's exquisite
tower, but I was steeped in the breath of the times, became part of all that vast turned-up field's
solid power.
What I could see by the wall of the glum Column Hall, floating in state on a black-and-white,
fir-and-snow cloud, was half-a-century's borderline, bright as a weal, cleaving in two an incredibly
wide stony road.
A downy seed that survived all the press and the rage, that came alive from the avalanche, I fell in
love with this unfortunate, awesome and wonderful age. Arms round my neighbors, I stepped into its
second half.